Idle Rich Founders?

Being something of an amateur historian I am constantly reading history. One of my favorite types of books to read is a biography. Good biographies give more insight into an individual’s thought processes and back grounds so that the history that person influences can more directly be related to the most human of emotions and processes. I find it interesting to read several different biographies on one particular person and then read biographies on the people that this person interacted with during his or her lifetime to see how these interactions affect the course of human history. After all, human history is basically the net effect of personal interactions, not a time line of political and military movements. The core cause of political and military action can always be traced to the personal interactions of its leaders. Any other understanding of history is necessarily a confusion of cause and effect.

Some years ago I undertook to read a biography of each American president. As I am very interested in Colonial history especially this has been an eye opening experience in many ways. The more I read, the more I find that I want to read to more fully understand this same set of interactions. I am often led to reading biographies of other people besides the American presidents just to get a feel for the other side of the issues they argued for and against. It is fascinating to read the antithetical opposing views from some of our founding fathers because it is the combination of these views that actually led to the formation of our Constitution and our form of government. The first thing that stands out in such readings is the fact that there was NO consensus opinion that all the American Founding Fathers agreed upon with the possible exception of the fact that they felt it necessary to declare independence from Great Britain and even this declaration was shaded in many hues of disagreement as to how complete this separation should be. The fact of the matter is that there was barely a preponderance of opinion that this separation should occur at all. The best estimates suggest that the colonies were roughly divided in equal thirds on the question. One third gradually coming around to pushing for independence, one third pushing for a continuance of the status quo, and one third caring not a whit one way or another until the problem manifested itself into a war in their front yard.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that many of the leaders of colonial governments here simply picked up and moved back to England when the war started while others readily joined the Royal forces in opposing Colonial efforts at independence. By any honest account, there was no universal agreement that the Colonies should separate from the crown and Parliament and only a protracted and expensive war and the entry of France into this war managed to allow those pushing for Independence to have their way and form a new and independent government.
After the war was successful the United States very nearly collapsed completely because of a stubborn insistence that each and every new state was a sovereign entity, bound to decide for itself on all questions of taxation and reparations of the huge national debt that the country had managed to bring on itself in winning this independence. This spirit of independence amongst the states was finally forced to be stamped out by the Constitutional Convention of 1787 whereby the weak and unenforceable Articles of Confederation were replaced with a federal government with some teeth to its authority when it came to dealing with the individual states. Even then, with the country on the verge of internal collapse and bankruptcy, it was a hard fought battle to get the independently minded states to agree to unite under a Federal Government.

Every time I hear one of the latter day talking heads of conservative radio rail about the intent of the founding fathers as if it exists in one viewpoint on stone tablets I cringe at their actual lack of understanding of history. The history of this country has never, ever been the whim of one side of the political spectrum but has always been a compromise between the left and the right. The net result of any democratic based governmental system is always a centrist position. This is necessarily a result of the inherent basic concept of the system whereby the majority rules. The centrist position shifts over time with the sway of public opinion but at any one time the centrist position will ALWAYS be the only position from which any political party can expect to control policy. Unfortunately, in this country today we are seeing a manipulation of this public perception of this position by largely artificial means. Advertising dollars control the media and if anyone thinks that the advertising dollars are coming from any position other than the far corporate right they are hopelessly confused and economically ignorant. Dollars buy TV and radio time and dollars are in much higher supply on the far right than anywhere else in this country today.

Leaving that line of thinking for a moment it has occurred to me from some of my recent readings of historical biographies how little our founding fathers actually had in common with the great mass of people who populate this country; both in Colonial times and in present times. There was a class structure in the society they came from that was largely inflexible and pronounced. While it may indeed have been less structured than the ones that existed in Europe and Great Britain at the time, it was still a class structure that was much more pronounced than what exists in this country today. In large part, that is because of the foresight of some of these early leaders and their recognition that for a truly Republican government to be effective it would have to be immune from the control of this structure.

Still, almost all of the founding fathers were from the upper middle class. Many of them were second generation wealthy as in most cases their immediate forebears had carved a higher standard of living for their children through hard work and good fortune in equal measures. This led to a unique circumstance in which people who were largely a product of the working class were also the new leisured class who were able to devote long hours to study of history, philosophy, and government. This group formed the heart and soul of the Founding Fathers and their unique perspective formed the basis of the first Republican government truly of the people and by the people on the face of this planet.

A few examples are in order here. George Washington, whose father was a land speculator, planter, sheriff and first generation self made man of the ruling class is one example. Washington was educated locally in somewhat less than a classical method but was taught mathematics, history, and sociology as a necessary primer to the duties that he would inherit as a landowner, planter, and leader in the community. In many ways Washington was different than many of his contemporaries in that he actually worked at a trade for part of his early life. Washington was a surveyor for a short period but beyond that he was much more interesting in military advancement than anything else. It must always be remembered that all these interests were simply supplemental to his main income which came from being a large landowner and sometimes absentee planter.

John Adams was a small landowner and largely self made man as a lawyer and local politician. While he was not as rich as many of his fellow founders, he was quite a successful trial lawyer and businessman which gave him ample free time for his later political pursuits. He was classically educated and a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge on history, philosophy, and many other scientific pursuits besides.

Thomas Jefferson was a second generation planter and owner of large quantities of slaves. Jefferson derived a steady if insufficient income for his tastes as an absentee planter and landowner for much of his career. He too was classically educated and spent numerous years and endless hours studying all manner of history and philosophy in his young adulthood. While he was early and often a member of political bodies in Virginia at the time he spent the vast majority of his time in contemplation and never could be bothered to put a vast amount of work into either his law business or his many planting concerns. As a member of the House of Burgesses and later Governor of Virginia he was often absent from meetings and on more than one occasion had to be rounded up forcibly by the sergeant at arms to fulfill his duties. Jefferson was endlessly curious about a vast variety of subjects and routinely dropped matters of political or financial importance to rush headlong into the minute study of some new and interesting subject. Jefferson was probably one of the most educated men of his time in a wide variety of fields but his work ethic left much to be desired throughout his life.

James Madison was a son of the largest landowner in Orange County, Virginia. He too was educated in the classics. He attended Princeton University but spent countless hours reading history, philosophy, and political writings of basically every period since the beginning of recorded history. Madison was a practicing lawyer but spent the vast majority of his time in government service while living quite well off of the proceeds of his inherited lands and slaves.

John Jay was the wealthy son of a mercantile magnate in New York. The Jay family came to this country as French Huegenots when France forced the protestants out of their country after the Edict of Nantes. Jay was educated in the classics as well and became a practicing lawyer but the majority of his support came from inherited wealth which gave him the opportunity to immerse himself in politics and nation building.

Benjamin Franklin was not born wealthy but became that way through hard work and good fortune in the printing business. He was basically retired from business at a fairly young age which allowed his expanding interest in politics and the human condition to have free reign for most of his later life. Franklin, who lived much more frugally than most of the founding fathers, was also much more of a believer in the possibilities of the common man’s abilities. I suspect this had as much to do with his upbringing and early training as the relative idleness of most of the founding fathers’ early years did with their eventual outlook.

I could go on in this vein but in the interest of avoiding redundancy I will stop. As anyone can plainly see the one trait that all these men shared was a certain amount of idle time, time that was not an absolute necessity in forging a means of putting food on the table or clothes on their children’s backs. The truly interesting part of this observation is how much spirit of sacrifice and sharing these men shared. While there are of course traces of class distinction in their writings and actions, they were exceedingly liberal in their views on sharing the wealth and spreading prosperity for all. It seems that most of these men well understood the principle that education and economic prosperity for all is a necessary component to a republican form of government.

It really is sad that most conservatives today who espouse to follow the Constitution as written seem to have lost this part of the concept. Perhaps they would be well served to study the actual writings of our founding fathers without the preconceived notion that this country was founded on the principal of the rich getting richer at the expense of everyone else. It is interesting how often such people tend towards self justification in all things. After all, if all you have is a hammer it is an unvarnished truism that everything soon begins to look like a nail.