The Origins of Modern Democratic Thought

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The Origins of Modern Democratic Thought
Dr. Brad Jones California State University,
Fresno September 21, 2006
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• History-Social Science Content Standards for
  California Public Schools
• 11.1 Students analyze the significant events in
  the founding of the nation and its attempts to
  realize the philosophy of government described in
  the Declaration of Independence.

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• Describe the Enlightenment and the rise of
  democratic ideas as the context in which the
  nation was founded.
• Analyze the ideological origins of the American
  Revolution, the Founding Fathers' philosophy of
  divinely bestowed unalienable natural rights, the
  debates on the drafting and ratification of the
  Constitution, and the addition of the Bill of
  Rights.

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• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is
  understood to last as long, and no longer, than
  the power lasteth by which he can protect them.
• Sovereign free to rule- must act in interest of
  subjects
• Monarchy best form of govt.
• All powerful, centralize state
• If ruler fails to ensure stability, society will
• dissolve into a state of nature/chaos until new
• contract is made
• Denies the peoples right to rebel in such
• instances
• Most famous work is Leviathan (1651)
• response to English Civil War

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• John Locke (1632-1704)
• Two Treatises of Government (1690)
• Mankind naturally in state of anarchy (no
  government)
• Individuals left to own device would act with
  self-interest
• Mankind must enter into a political society to
  ensure stability
• Government therefore necessary, but
• only if it acts in the interest of the
• people- Social Contract Theory
• People have right to rebel in such cases
• Glorious Revolution (1688)

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• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
• The Social Contract (1762)
• Humans are good, but the society in which they
  live is corrupt and bad
• Society will eventually deteriorate into chaos
  unless humans come together and adopt government
• submission to the authority of the will of the
  people as a whole guarantees individuals against
  being subordinated to the wills of others

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• Montesquieu (1689-1755)
• Believed a republic was the best form of
  government
• "In republican governments, men are all equal
  equal they are also in despotic governments in
  the former, because they are everything in the
  latter, because they are nothing." (On the Spirit
  of Laws (1748))
• Success depended on a balance of power within
  government
• Prototype for checks and balances
• He acknowledged the British Constitution as the
  best
• example of government
• king (enforced laws), Parliament (elected, made
  laws), and
• the judges of the English courts (interpreted
  laws)

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• The American Colonies
• By 1700- twelve of the thirteen colonies settled
  by English (and after 1707, British)
• Georgia the last in 1732
• Ideas of English liberty transmitted across the
  Atlantic (in person and print)
• Colonists saw themselves as English/British
• Inheritors of the rights and liberties obtained
  in Glorious Revolution (English Bill of Rights
  (1689))

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• Popular Political Protest
• Riots, protests, and even celebrations that
  defined and expressed a coherent political
  ideology
• The Crowd often, but not always, made up of
  disenfranchised
• Women, blacks, children and poor whites
• Affective in checking the power of the elite
  (government)
• Most often reflected economic or social concerns
• Acceptable and legal form for expressing
  grievances

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• To the Printer. The St. Jamess Chronicle or,
  the British Evening-Post, 9 April 1768.
• The Truth is, there ever were and ever will be
  Mobs in England, whilst we remain a free People
  and for my own Part, though I have many Windows
  in the Front of my House, I would rather have
  them all demolished once a Year, whenever the
  Common People...think the Cause of Liberty
  endangered, than live to see the Time when the
  Mob of England, like the Vassals of France, shall
  be afraid to shout, lest the Gens dArmes should
  cut them in Pieces. The Licentiousness of a Mob
  may be very alarming, but any Abuse of Power in
  those who ought to be the Guardians of Liberty,
  appears to me to be infinitely more alarming.
  The former, if not opposed, lasts but a few
  Hours, and expires of itself but the latter, if
  not opposed, and opposed with Spirit, gains
  Strength with Time, and lasts for ever.

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• Popular Print Culture
• Newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, broadsides,
  miscellaneous ephemra
• Textualize protest to create a uniformed and
  united response
• Help to draw interests of diverse colonies
  together
• Not just propaganda
• Articulated a coherent and unified popular
  political ideology

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• The American Revolution
• Organized, popular opposition to an unjust
  government
• British government not acting in the interest of
  the people
• Protests, riots, crowd action used to defend an
  emerging common interest
• English in origin, but adopted by American
  colonists

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• No Taxation without Representation!
• Colonists were not represented in Parliament,
  therefore shouldnt be taxed
• Riots and protests as popular forms of social
  contract theory
• Spread via newspapers, pamphlets and broadsides
• Created an organized, slowly unified popular
  movement

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• Cut across gender and class lines
• Men, women, rich and poor required to participate
• Success dependent upon a person sacrificing his
  or her private interests for the sake of the
  public welfare.
• Most pure form of modern democracy
• Everyone had a role in the process

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Edenton, NC Ladies Tea Party (1774)
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• George Robert Twelve Hewes
• Boston shoemaker (poor, lower sort)
• Deferent toward elite merchants in city
• Indifferent to protests against British taxation
  taking place in Boston in 1760s
• Witness to the Boston Massacre in 1770
• Becomes active in Bostonian crowds
• Participates in the Boston Tea Party
• Becomes minor celebrity in 1830s

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• The Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770)
• Popular opposition to British standing army
• Oppressive, arbitrary, taking jobs, food, living
  space during time of recession
• Acute example of Lockes social contract theory
• Contemporary reports and images illustrate this
  point and expand its significance for a wider
  audience

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• The Result
• Popular resistance works
• On streets and in print
• Creates a coherent and unified language of
  liberty amongst broad population
• Articulates a new, radical and revolutionary
  political ideology
• Paines Common Sense and Declaration of
  Independence are Lockean

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• Articles of Confederation
• Initial attempt at establishing government
• Decentralized- states over federal government
• Most power lodged in elected representative
  assemblies- the people
• Shays Rebellion (1787)

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• "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.
  ... God forbid we should ever be twenty years
  without such a rebellion. ... And what country
  can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are
  not warned from time to time, that this people
  preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take
  arms The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
  time to time, with the blood of patriots and
  tyrants. It is its natural manure."
• Thomas Jefferson (1787)

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• James Madison, Federalist Paper 10 (1787)
• Faction a group actuated by some common
  impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to
  the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent
  and aggregate interests of the community."
• Two ways a government can deal with faction
• Remove causes of faction (not a democracy)
• Limit its affect
• Create a strong centralized government, where
  positions of power are removed from public
  influence
• Representative Democracy- elected representatives
  speak for large groups of people
• Elites responsible for governance

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• The Constitution
• Reaction to corrupt and self-interested state
  legislatures
• Articles too localized- reps didnt see beyond
  their own neighborhood
• Needed strong centralized government, run by
  noble gentlemen to ensure stability and growth
  of entire country

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• Failure of Revolution
• Counter-revolutionary in many ways
• A device for establishing a virtuous republican
  government over a population of less than
  virtuous people.
• The voice of the people replaced by
  representative democracy
• Right to vote guaranteed to select few
• African slaves, women, native Americans and some
  poor whites failed to secure the freedoms and
  liberties that they had fought and died for.

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• However
• Founders were realists
• foolish to expect people to sacrifice private
  interests for the sake of the public welfare
• Attempt to ensure government could remain
  republican and committed to liberty, even though
  the citizens who elected that government might be
  self-interested
• Made possible by ensuring that the government is
  run by disinterested elite