My Fellow Americans: Can We Please Stop Asking What the "Founding Fathers" Would Have Said About America Today?
Many moons ago, when I was a much younger, pre-Amazing Justin, I was sitting on a bus with a friend of mine, debating politics. The two of us did this often, but not usually for such a long time- we were on a school trip from Illinois to New York, and neither of us were the type to sleep much while traveling. We were worn down and getting generally irritable- so naturally, our debate (I can't remember the specifics on what it was on) was getting somewhat heated. And at one point, as we rambled bits of logic, or what counted as logic in our near-sleepless state, our exchange spiraled into this:
Him: "Okay, fine, but that's not the point. The Founding Fathers would have said-"
Me: "Man, fuck the Founding Fathers! Who the hell cares what those dead bastards would have thought!"
Him: *Gasp!*
...Ahem.
Now, there's two very important lessons I think I can take from this exchange. 1.) Having a spirited political discussion when you've only had 6 hours of sleep in the last 4 days is probably not a very good idea, especially when you're an uppity, arrogant teenager. And 2.) My annoying, loud-mouthed, angry past-self might kind of have a point. Why do people continue to tell people what the "Founding Fathers" would have said, as if that is an "instant win" card in any debate? Does it really matter what they would have said in the first place? Should we really care what some rich, dead, white guy thought about states rights or gun control?
Let's start by defining the opening issue: Just who were the Founding Fathers? That's one of those questions that people go back and forth on. Obviously men like George Washington and John Adams were, but how about lesser known figures, like William Few or Jared Ingersoll? John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence, but had little to do with the US Constitution, is he a Founding Father? What about Thomas Paine? His works Common Sense and The American Crisis were probably more influential on the American Revolution than almost any of the signers of the Declaration. For the record, here's Wikipedia's breakdown of all the "Founding Fathers". Honestly, can you find more than ten names on that list of people you recognize without clicking any links? (Note: American History Majors, you are excused from this exercise.)
It may surprise you to know that "the Founding Fathers" as a term is less than a hundred years old. It was first used in Warren G. Harding's keynote address to the 1916 Republican Convention. Said Harding: "Conditions do change, popular interest is self-asserting, and "paramounting" has it's perils, as the Democratic party will bear witness, but the essentials of constructive government and attending progress are abiding and unchanging. For example, we ought to be as genuinely American today as when our founding fathers flung their immortal defiance in the face of old-world oppressions and dedicated a new republic to liberty and justice."* That's it, that's where the term came from. It's a good speech, (though I'd argue with the nostalgia regarding the facts behind the American Revolution in it) but that's where all of this started.
None of the Founding Fathers ever considered themselves as such. After all, it's just an arbitrary term to describe a loose group of people. The "Founders" themselves probably thought of earlier settlers as their own "founding fathers", people like William Penn or Richard Nicholls (I am the first person to admit that this is purely speculation on my part).
More to the point, how much stock should we really put into the Founding Father's imagined opinions of us? I'm not trying to bash the USA, but historically, a lot of the Founders- including the near-universally revered ones- had some pretty serious character flaws. 12 of the first 18 presidents owned slaves, and 8 of them did so while they were president, including Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson. The last sitting president to own slaves was Zachary Taylor, who died in office in 1850, owning roughly 100 slaves at the time. Even Benjamin Franklin, in later-life an avid abolitionist, at one point owned slaves. And the "It was just a part of life at the time" argument isn't entirely invalid, but the truth is some people thought slavery was wrong long before England and America banned it. There were some Quakers were working to abolish slavery at least as early as 1688, 99 years before the US Constitution was signed.
Does this mean we should reject everything they had to say? Of course not. Ideas are more important than people, even the people that originated them. And some of the ideas that these men put forth were and are profoundly important, both here in America and abroad. But we need to remember that these men, heroes of (Euro-)American history, were still just people. They had faults, flaws, and some of them were probably just assholes.
Ben Franklin was a brilliant diplomat and inventor, and also quite the perv. Thomas Jefferson was arguably the single most important writer in American political/philosophical history; yet despite all his writings on freedom and Enlightenment ideals, his (arguably extreme) pro-slavery stance stands in staunch opposition to his writings. Nearly every president in the first 150 years of this country took part in the Indian Wars, an awful part of our national history that we should all be ashamed of. No one- president or parent- is perfect, and we need to accept that. Looking at these (rich, white) men as "heroes" without question or context diminishes them as people and diminishes our history as a whole. Warts and all, our history is how we got here, and we should understand it honestly.
All of this is ignoring the real point, of course. Americans- historically, at least- love to think of their past leaders as heroes, almost of biblical proportions. And our current leaders- political, spiritual, whatever- they know this, and twist the words of the founding fathers to suit their purposes. This happens on all political sides, there's plenty of this nonsense to go around. But from what I can tell, they use it just like in the argument my friend and I were having in high school; an "instant win" card to play in the debating game. "If the founding fathers thought this, it must be true" is all the reasoning they need. Sometimes, yes, that's what the founding fathers thought, and sometimes not. But who cares?
It's 2012. Almost two and a half centuries later, are the opinions of the Founders really that relevant today? Sometimes, but certainly not always. The world is vastly different today, obviously. The United States is the dominate world power, women can vote, slavery has been abolished, the economic center of the country is no longer the south- today's America is nothing like theirs. It couldn't be, because change is constant, and often a very good thing. So why keep looking to the past to justify today's actions? I'm not saying it serves no purpose at all, but you can't let nostalgia form your argument for you.
Is it time to maybe stop seeking the founding father's approval? After all, only a child constantly needs verification from their parents for their every deed. Maybe it's time to stop worrying what George Washington or Aaron Burr would think of the way we've run things since they've died. Maybe it's time to accept responsibility for America today, so that we can step forward into an even brighter future.
Maybe it's time for America to grow up. Just a thought.
*=For the record, Harding was protesting the 64th United States Congress and the Wilson administration. Wilson, a Democrat, enjoyed a super-majority in the congress, and it should probably be noted that Wilson was re-elected in 1916 under the slogan "He kept us out of war!" That would not last. I'd have to check on the specifics to put Harding's speech in greater context, I admit that my WWI-era history isn't nearly as up-to-snuff as I'd wish it to be.
Him: "Okay, fine, but that's not the point. The Founding Fathers would have said-"
Me: "Man, fuck the Founding Fathers! Who the hell cares what those dead bastards would have thought!"
Him: *Gasp!*
...Ahem.
Now, there's two very important lessons I think I can take from this exchange. 1.) Having a spirited political discussion when you've only had 6 hours of sleep in the last 4 days is probably not a very good idea, especially when you're an uppity, arrogant teenager. And 2.) My annoying, loud-mouthed, angry past-self might kind of have a point. Why do people continue to tell people what the "Founding Fathers" would have said, as if that is an "instant win" card in any debate? Does it really matter what they would have said in the first place? Should we really care what some rich, dead, white guy thought about states rights or gun control?
Let's start by defining the opening issue: Just who were the Founding Fathers? That's one of those questions that people go back and forth on. Obviously men like George Washington and John Adams were, but how about lesser known figures, like William Few or Jared Ingersoll? John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence, but had little to do with the US Constitution, is he a Founding Father? What about Thomas Paine? His works Common Sense and The American Crisis were probably more influential on the American Revolution than almost any of the signers of the Declaration. For the record, here's Wikipedia's breakdown of all the "Founding Fathers". Honestly, can you find more than ten names on that list of people you recognize without clicking any links? (Note: American History Majors, you are excused from this exercise.)
It may surprise you to know that "the Founding Fathers" as a term is less than a hundred years old. It was first used in Warren G. Harding's keynote address to the 1916 Republican Convention. Said Harding: "Conditions do change, popular interest is self-asserting, and "paramounting" has it's perils, as the Democratic party will bear witness, but the essentials of constructive government and attending progress are abiding and unchanging. For example, we ought to be as genuinely American today as when our founding fathers flung their immortal defiance in the face of old-world oppressions and dedicated a new republic to liberty and justice."* That's it, that's where the term came from. It's a good speech, (though I'd argue with the nostalgia regarding the facts behind the American Revolution in it) but that's where all of this started.
None of the Founding Fathers ever considered themselves as such. After all, it's just an arbitrary term to describe a loose group of people. The "Founders" themselves probably thought of earlier settlers as their own "founding fathers", people like William Penn or Richard Nicholls (I am the first person to admit that this is purely speculation on my part).
More to the point, how much stock should we really put into the Founding Father's imagined opinions of us? I'm not trying to bash the USA, but historically, a lot of the Founders- including the near-universally revered ones- had some pretty serious character flaws. 12 of the first 18 presidents owned slaves, and 8 of them did so while they were president, including Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson. The last sitting president to own slaves was Zachary Taylor, who died in office in 1850, owning roughly 100 slaves at the time. Even Benjamin Franklin, in later-life an avid abolitionist, at one point owned slaves. And the "It was just a part of life at the time" argument isn't entirely invalid, but the truth is some people thought slavery was wrong long before England and America banned it. There were some Quakers were working to abolish slavery at least as early as 1688, 99 years before the US Constitution was signed.
Does this mean we should reject everything they had to say? Of course not. Ideas are more important than people, even the people that originated them. And some of the ideas that these men put forth were and are profoundly important, both here in America and abroad. But we need to remember that these men, heroes of (Euro-)American history, were still just people. They had faults, flaws, and some of them were probably just assholes.
Ben Franklin was a brilliant diplomat and inventor, and also quite the perv. Thomas Jefferson was arguably the single most important writer in American political/philosophical history; yet despite all his writings on freedom and Enlightenment ideals, his (arguably extreme) pro-slavery stance stands in staunch opposition to his writings. Nearly every president in the first 150 years of this country took part in the Indian Wars, an awful part of our national history that we should all be ashamed of. No one- president or parent- is perfect, and we need to accept that. Looking at these (rich, white) men as "heroes" without question or context diminishes them as people and diminishes our history as a whole. Warts and all, our history is how we got here, and we should understand it honestly.
All of this is ignoring the real point, of course. Americans- historically, at least- love to think of their past leaders as heroes, almost of biblical proportions. And our current leaders- political, spiritual, whatever- they know this, and twist the words of the founding fathers to suit their purposes. This happens on all political sides, there's plenty of this nonsense to go around. But from what I can tell, they use it just like in the argument my friend and I were having in high school; an "instant win" card to play in the debating game. "If the founding fathers thought this, it must be true" is all the reasoning they need. Sometimes, yes, that's what the founding fathers thought, and sometimes not. But who cares?
It's 2012. Almost two and a half centuries later, are the opinions of the Founders really that relevant today? Sometimes, but certainly not always. The world is vastly different today, obviously. The United States is the dominate world power, women can vote, slavery has been abolished, the economic center of the country is no longer the south- today's America is nothing like theirs. It couldn't be, because change is constant, and often a very good thing. So why keep looking to the past to justify today's actions? I'm not saying it serves no purpose at all, but you can't let nostalgia form your argument for you.
Is it time to maybe stop seeking the founding father's approval? After all, only a child constantly needs verification from their parents for their every deed. Maybe it's time to stop worrying what George Washington or Aaron Burr would think of the way we've run things since they've died. Maybe it's time to accept responsibility for America today, so that we can step forward into an even brighter future.
Maybe it's time for America to grow up. Just a thought.
*=For the record, Harding was protesting the 64th United States Congress and the Wilson administration. Wilson, a Democrat, enjoyed a super-majority in the congress, and it should probably be noted that Wilson was re-elected in 1916 under the slogan "He kept us out of war!" That would not last. I'd have to check on the specifics to put Harding's speech in greater context, I admit that my WWI-era history isn't nearly as up-to-snuff as I'd wish it to be.
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