A few Federalist essays have described a benefit to the scope of federal elections; in quick summation: with a nation-wide pool of candidates free from local squabbles, the very best policy and governance thinkers will rise to federal office. (Each Publius has offered the argument; Jay in F3, Madison in F10, and Hamilton in F27.) It has been, on my first impression, a meritocracy argument. And it is, tonally, a very different argument for national leadership than another theme that Professor Ferling describes in A Leap in the Dark. In the chapters covering the Articles of Confederation and the Constitutional convention, Ferling describes the creeping fear – buyer’s remorse? – that the Nation may swing from one problematic pole (monarchy) to another (hasty democracy). Ferling describes the eagerness of many delegates “to limit democratic impulses.”
I always think it’s worth remembering the neoclassicism flowering at the end of the Enlightenment; and, more importantly, really, the historiographical context. Then, as now, students of Greek history learned that while, yes, Athenian democracy was an important human development, the institution ultimately brought Athens down because the demos couldn’t govern. By the time I reached college, the story was that the voting poloi’s livelihoods relied overwhelmingly on war – so they voted for war all the time. And they voted myopically. And with blinders. The point being, the masses were not good at governing. Our Founders had basically the same understanding of that history, which reinforced a general notion that you don’t want straight democracy.
And so, this different theme regarding the makeup of the national leader class has a slightly different feel than meritocracy. Ferling writes that most founders, forgetting that they were upstarts by Londond’s standards, regarded the post-war Congress as a bunch of scrubs, elected by unthinking populist-driven localities. I actually think Sarah Palin may be a bit of an analogy.
Also, it was interesting to read about that fear now, during the Great Recession. The policies passing through state governments, so fear-provoking to several founders, sometimes resulted in creditors losing their claim to money because of debtor-friendly relief laws. Shay’s Rebellion started as a foreclosure protest. The big deal, among nationalists startled by these developments, was the need for a federal government that could protect property. The states, they felt, were unable to stand up for property rights (of creditors and land owners) against popular sentiment for debt-relief and redistributionists.
Ferling offers a few quotes:
“Our chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our constitutions.”
The “people … should have as little to do as may be be about the Government.”
The “evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy.”
Randolph urged checks against “the turbulence and follies of democracy” and maintained that ways must be found to restrain “the fury of democracy.”
The Constitution “embraced what Madison subsequently called the ‘republican remedy’ against radical change.” The factions (F10) would prevent any hasty, democratic policy-making. Here is Ferling:
Indeed, Madison boasted proudly that the system would “refine and enlarge the public views,” resulting in national policies “more consonent to the public good than if pronouced by the people themselves.”
…But somewhat cryptically he also explained why this new national government would not be susceptible to the sort of substantive changes that had occurred in several states. Few of the “new men” so visible in state politics, Madison said, were likely to rise to this higher level. The “vicious arts by which elections are too often carried” in the states would be unavailing in the national electoral systems by this convention. …National officials would be “a better class” of society….Madison’s communication, first to the majority that attended the convention, then to like-minded nationalists throughout the county, was that the way had been found by which to make radical change difficult, if not impossible. Change at the state level would be impeded by the national government. At the national level, the separation of powers and numerous checks and balances erected within the proposed new constitutional system were to constitute purposeful barriers to change. …If this Constitution went into effect, the “changeableness” that had been set afoot by the American Revolution would henceforth be unlikely or, at best, would occur at a glacial pace.
Fewer of the “new men” would rise to national leadership. In the context of these few quotes, that fear of the new man is a much different driver, regarding national leadership, than the big pool, meritocracy driver.
A meritocracy implies an egalitarian playing field and one in which particular talents are recognized with all other things being equal. The bigger the net, the better chance of finding the right fish. There is something quite different to the notion that we need national leaders to keep a status quo.
I cannot help but think of Hamilton and Madison. Hamilton, a foreign bastard, could become a national leader because of meritocracy. Madison, the wonk-gentleman, typifies the landed interests prominent among most other founders.
They both predict, in their Federalist essays, a finer breed of national leaders. But, I wonder if their assumptions and motivations for that leadership were quite unalike.
