Novel Learning with Joe Abittan
Novel Learning
Sharing what I have learned from what I have read: A blog by Joe Abittan
The Non-Transparent Constitutional Convention
Posted on March 31, 2019 by jabittan
In his book, Political Realism, Jonathan Rauch argues that some of the changes we have made to the political system of the Untied States in the last several years have been self-defeating in regards to the functioning, efficiency, and effectiveness of our government. In particular, our ever expanding pursuit of transparency and the degree to which everything is recorded and open has made real debate with tough decisions more challenging. It is hard to have a debate with compromises where unpopular policies are discussed and worked through and more successful and effective legislation is created.
I was reminded of this idea from Rauch while reading Joseph Ellis' book The Quartet. Our nation was originally founded under the Articles of Confederation, which did not pull our states together in a meaningful way to unify and promote our national interests. Replacing the Articles, however, was not a simple task and drafting a new Constitution was challenging. In many ways, the success of the new Constitution required our founding fathers to cut against many of the values they hoped the Constitution would establish for all citizens. Ellis describes it this way, "Ironically, to the extent that the delegates at Philadelphia succeeded, their success was dependent on violating all of our contemporary convictions about transparency and diversity, which is one reason why their success could never be duplicated in our time."
Efforts to refine government and open up governance all start from a positive point of view, the belief that sunshine will act as a disinfectant, ridding politics of corruption and illegitimate deal making. The reality however, is that transparency and other reforms to make politics more open and clear can act as sand in the gears of our political machinery. Some debates require closed doors and safe spaces for compromises to be worked out. Getting legislators to organize together requires massive efforts of coordination and often requires conversations that take place outside of the spotlight as legislators and the people they represent have conflicting views and interests. It is worth reflecting on our ever growing pursuit of open democracy and remembering that our nation required what appeared to be non-democratic and non-transparent rules to get its start in the first place.
Tagged Constitutional Convention, Effectiveness and Efficiency, Governance, Government, transparencyLeave a comment
A Shift in Sovereignty
In my last post I wrote about the complexities of sovereignty, of who has the supreme power and authority in a given polity and where that authority comes from. The Revolutionary War in the United States ushered in a new government with independent states, each sovereign within their own territory, held together by a loosely constructed national government. Power and authority held within the state was derived from the citizens of the state who had come together to forge new lives in America.
This arrangement, however, was not politically stable and did not hold the states together in a way that protected the interests of each state and of each citizen within each state. A new government was needed to cement the bonds between the states, and the new government required a re-imagining of sovereignty. Today it is obvious that the Federal Government is sovereign over the state governments. It is clear to us that our elected officials represent us and receive their power with the consent of our votes, but at the time of the American Revolution and at the time of the writing of our Constitution, this was not obvious. Joseph Ellis describes the shift in sovereignty in his book The Quartet by writing:
"Sovereignty had shifted from a monarchy claiming to derive its authority from God to a legislature claiming to derive its authority from 'the people.' Political power flowed not downward from the heavens but upward from the citizenry. Indeed, this was the fundamental change that had made the war for independence a revolution."
This view of power and authority was radically different from a view of a monarch ordained by God to lead a people. There were many questions that were addressed in the constitution to answer questions about how power and authority would be transmitted through the people to the governing authorities of the nation, and at the time these were new ideas that required a shift in thinking about both power and governance. Sovereignty now had a new basis for legitimacy, and it was bottom up, growing from the public and not top down from a ruler.
Tagged America, Governance, Government, Public, sovereignty, The PeopleLeave a comment
Sovereignty is a difficult concept, even though it seems pretty easy and strait-forward. A quick Google definition of sovereignty is "supreme power or authority," but what this means in the real world is more muddy than what the Google definition suggests. From the quick definition one might think of the Supreme Court and suggest that the court is the supreme power and authority in the United States, but with our separation of powers, the Supreme Court's authority is somewhat limited and is not all encompassing. The Supreme Court is a good example of the complexity of sovereignty and the challenges of truly understanding how power and authority interact within a society and government.
The most challenging question about sovereignty and authority is the question of where authority comes from. The American Revolution was fueled by the idea that sovereignty rested within the individual states, whose constitutions governed the relationship between their populations and their ruling authorities. Today, sovereignty rests far more with the federal government rather than with the states. At the time of the writing of our constitution, a fundamental shift in sovereignty was taking place between the federal government and the states. Joseph Ellis captures this conflict in his book The Quartet describing the way that Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and John Jay bent the idea of sovereignty to give rise to the sovereign federal government that we eventually came to understand today.
"The knotty question of sovereignty – did it reside in the states or in the federal government?-was the central issue requiring a clear resolution. If the federal veto proved impossible, an alternative argument, an artful finesse, might be that sovereignty was located in "the people," a somewhat ambiguous formulation that bent the shape of the new constitution in a national direction."
Ellis explains the way that our national focus on the individual, the liberties of the individual, and the notions of sovereignty came together to create a new idea of how governments and individuals should relate to each other. Sovereignty was believed to rest with the people, and people had natural human rights and authority which they could then divest in the government. This is not an obvious thought and idea, and even today, we have retreated from this view. We often now see the Federal Government as the ultimate authority of the land, not the people. Our rights and freedoms flow from the Federal Government which decides what we can and cannot do and which guarantees us certain rights in writing. Power and authority seem like they are strait-forward concepts, but Ellis's writing on sovereignty at the nation's founding and our complex shifting views of sovereignty demonstrate that it is more complex than it first appears.
Tagged Founding Fathers, Governance, Government, sovereigntyLeave a comment
The Whole
The United States is an interesting place. We have become an incredibly wealthy nation and have done things to advance things like technology, living standards, and scientific knowledge in ways that have improved the entire globe. The achievements of the United States have come while we have simultaneously adopted a narrative of individuality and individual success. It is our freedom, our pursuit of capitalism and greatness, and our individual desires to achieve and become great that have pushed our country to what it is today.
At least, that is the story we tell ourselves. While this narrative has taken hold, we have also had countless people who have advocated not for just individual freedom and success, but for national unity and for a cohesive vision of our society. Individuals who have been willing to sacrifice their own self-interest for the welfare of others has also been part of our American story, but it is often forgotten or at least not celebrated in the way that ruthless capitalism is (think about all the books written about Steve Jobs). Forgetting the connections between us all, the degree to which some people do everything they can for others, and the importance of becoming one people across the country is not new.
In his book The Quartet, Joseph Ellis takes a critical look at the actions of four of our founding fathers to bring about the adoption of our current constitution following the Articles of Confederation. In my last post, I wrote about John Jay, a relatively unknown founding father, and someone who made decisions across his political career to drive forward the national interest rather than a personal or state interest. An example of his nation-first mindset is given in The Quartet surrounding the question of Vermont Statehood. The state of New York at one point included what is now Vermont, and most New Yorkers did not want to allow Vermont to become its own state. Jay, however, recognized that Vermont statehood would be good for the United States as a whole, even if it was not in the immediate interest of New York. "Despite pressure from the New York legislature," Ellis writes, "he would not budge from his conviction that the whole needed to take precedence over the parts, the first clear expression of his national orientation."
I don't have a prescription for the perfect balance between individualism and group centered thought, but I think the United States would do well to better recognize our interdependence and to encourage more actions that made personal sacrifices for the good of national unity. There have been studies recently that demonstrate that greater income inequality, particularly between an extremely wealthy few and the masses can lead to political instability, which could be damaging for the country as a whole. At the same time, encouraging individual success and achievement is of crucial importance. As Tyler Cowen describes in his book The Complacent Class, achieving economic growth should be a top priority, as increased GDP will lead to increased living standards and compounding returns on development and advancement. Encouraging wealth building potential can help with GDP growth, but on its own and without recognition of the value of social cohesion, instability can erupt and dismantle economic progress and development. The policy implications and solutions are difficult to think through, but on an individual level I think we can all do more to better respect the whole and discount our own personal interests.
Tagged Founding Fathers, GDP Growth, Interdependent, Nationhood, Self-interest, WholeLeave a comment
John Jay and America's Founding
When I picked up The Quartet by Joseph Ellis I was not surprised that the book focused on George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, three giants in the world of American history. I was surprised, however, with the fourth member of the quartet that Ellis suggested had the greatest impact on American nationhood and the shaping of our Constitution, John Jay. Ellis describes Jay as the man who, "almost singlehandedly wrote the New York constitution," and as an eloquent leader who learned the value of a strong executive and a strong central government for maintaining cohesion and unity within a political boundary. His political experience leading New York and serving as president to the Continental Congress shaped his views on early governance in America and allied Jay with Washington, Hamilton, and Madison who believed and advocated for a new government to replace the Articles of Confederation which served as a compact to unite the newly independent states following the Revolutionary War.
Jay's alignment with Washington, Hamilton, and Madison furthered the cause for a new American government thanks to his ability to win allies and influence people. Ellis describes Jay by writing, "Permanently poised, always the calm center of the storm, when a controversial issue arose, he always seemed to have thought it through more clearly and deeply than anyone else, so that his opinion had a matter-of-fact quality that made dissent seem impolite." Ellis also describes the how his commitment to an effective central government arose, writing about his time as the leader of the provisional government of New York and of the New York constitution (that he wrote) which vested an expansive authority within the executive branch:
"Jay was also showing his true colors as a conservative revolutionary, a rare hybrid that simultaneously embraced American independence and endorsed political structures that filtered popular opinion through several layers of institutionalized deliberation before it became the law of the land."
What I learned about John Jay while reading The Quartet served as a reminder to me of just how little I truly knew about our nation's founding. It is commonplace for people to refer back to great moments of importance in human history, such as the World Wars, the American Revolution, or any other point in time that had a great impact on the future of a country, society, or on humanity as a whole and ascribe a certain meaning to that time. What happens when we do this, however, is that we make assumptions and leave out key actors and perspectives. Jay had a first row seat to the founding of America and played a huge role in shaping the direction of New York and of our current Constitution, yet his name and the lessons he learned are largely unknown to most American's. Jay's story has lessons of political deal-making and influence, of learning from experience and translating personal lessons into movements to benefit the whole of society. Ellis does an excellent job in his book helping us better understood this forgotten giant of the American Revolution.
Tagged America's Founding, Founding Fathers, John Jay, PoliticsLeave a comment
Conflicting Views of the Continental Army
The American Founding Fathers and the citizens of the American Colonies had a lot of conflicting views about government and governance at the time of the American Revolution. Post war, the states existed as effectively autonomous sovereign nations tied together by shared yet distinct histories. During the war, the citizens needed an army capable of defeating the British, but also feared the power that a strong standing army would hold. Throughout the revolution and post-war period, the states understood that they would need to pay the army and pay for the support they received, but no one wanted to have a central authority collect monies to pay the soldiers and mercenaries who fought against the British. Joseph Ellis captures the conflict in his book The Quartet and writes,
"The unspoken and unattractive truth was that the marginal status of the Continental Army was reassuring for the vast majority of Americans, since a robust and professional army on the British model contradict the very values it was supposedly fighting for. It had to be just strong enough to win the war, or perhaps more accurately not lose it, but not so strong as to threaten the republican goals the war was ultimately about."
The Continental Army at points was barely holding together with minimal supplies and food. Robert Morris, a private citizen, stepped in and paid the soldiers and army himself, from his own private funds, and was viewed as a war profiteer. The Colonies sought independence, but fears of a strong standing army and a history of abuses by a central authority created fear among the colonies that hampered their efforts to build a robust force to bring them the independence they desired.
The conflict within the mindset of the colonies is a phenomenon we still see happening within American politics today. Foreign policy and healthcare are two arenas where similar conflicts still emerge and are quite visible. We want stability, positive outcomes, and assurances that we will not be bothered with inconveniences, but we are barely willing to pay for it. We expect our government to be farsighted and to operate perfectly, but we refuse to fund it fully and look for any abuse of power and any misuse of money as an example of why we cannot trust and cannot fully fund our government. Healthcare eats an enormous amount of total spending (governmental, private, and individual) in our country, but we don't seem to actually work toward the things that make us healthier. The government spends less that 1% of total budget on foreign affairs, but people assume we spend much more. In both of these areas, spending more directly to assist health and foreign aid would reduce the problems that arise later on and become our excuses and examples of why we cannot trust government. From our founding through today it seems that our distrust of government has been less in line with reality, and more in line with our fears and the stories we tell ourselves about what we need and what values we should try to live up to as a nation.
Tagged American Revolution, Authority, Continental Army, Founding Fathers, Government, Robert Morris, TrustLeave a comment
Slavery in the Constitution
The United States Constitution directly addresses slavery by apportioning slaves as counting as three fifths of a person for census counting purposes. The clauses containing slavery are some of the most disappointing aspects of our democracy, and are often viewed as a black eye on an otherwise shining document. People often say that slavery was misunderstood at the time of our nation's founding and often try to justify slavery's inclusion in the constitution by saying that it was commonplace at the time and not something we should judge our founding fathers against.
The reality is much more complicated. Many people, including many of our founding fathers understood that slavery was abhorrent and against the principles upon which the nation was founded. For example the Wikipedia page for Gouverneur Morris, the man who actually penned the constitution includes this quote from 1787, "Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens, and let them vote. Are they property? Why, then, is no other property included? … The admission of slaves into the Representation when fairly explained comes to this: that the inhabitant of Georgia and S. C. who goes to the Coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections & damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a Govt. instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the Citizen of Pa. or N. Jersey who views with a laudable horror, so nefarious a practice."
At the time of the American Revolution, the economy of the Southern Colonies was dependent on slavery, and throughout history we have seen mankind fail to live up to ideals and moral principles in the face of economic threat. I believe it is fair to argue that ending slavery would have taken a king or absolute ruler given the economic incentives of the South. Joseph Ellis addresses this in his book The Quartet by writing about the decisions made around slavery during our nation's founding. The following quote from Ellis describes a failed draft of a constitution drafted after the revolutionary war, before the adoption of the Articles of Confederation:
"Slavery was too volatile a subject to be addressed directly; indeed, there was an unspoken policy of silence surrounding the topic based on the broadly shared sense that it, more than any other issue, possessed the potential to destroy the political consensus that had formed around independence."
To tie the nation together and lay the ground for a United States that could grow and govern itself through democratic means, the founding fathers could not abolish slavery. A professor of mine once described slavery as a scaffolding built around the principles of the Constitution for construction purposes. After completion, slavery could be removed without damaging the foundation and simultaneously enhancing the beauty of the finished project. I think it is important to accept that slavery was understood to be evil and that South allowed economic interests to trump human morality. I think it is ok to address our founding fathers and be critical of the inclusion of slavery in the Constitution while at the same time understanding that it was in many ways necessary for building the nation we live in today. This is a tough thing to look at directly, but the lesson we can learn is that we are often held short of our moral best by economic and personal self-interest, and we should be honest with ourselves about the times we act in our self-interest and not in the interest of the group so that we can avoid the perils that the South made at the time of our founding.
Tagged America, Governance, Government, Slavery, The Constitution2 Comments
Two Revolutions
Joseph Ellis' book, The Quartet has an interesting subtitle: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789. The small details of the history of our nation's founding are easily forgotten, but after the American revolution, the colonies existed as mostly independent entities bound by the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution, which still governs our land, was not adopted at the time of the Revolutionary War, and Ellis calls its adoption The Second American Revolution.
Ellis describes the two revolutions at the start of our Nation's independent history this way, "The first American Revolution Achieved Independence. … The Second American Revolution modified the republican framework existent in the states in order to create a nation sized republic." The story of the adoption of our constitution is a story of viewing political power and American nationhood in a new light. It required shifting people's views of the possible and convincing the citizens of each state that they would be better off with a stronger national government to support the independent state governments. At a time when everyone thought of politics as local politics, barely extending beyond the state capital, the Second Revolution was an attempt to convince all of the former British Colonies that they should consider what took place in other colonies as relevant to their own political lives and allow a national government to have sovereignty over their local governments.
Ellis continues, "The first phase of the American Revolution was about the rejection of political power; the second phase was about controlling it." Bringing about the second revolution was not an easy task. American's had just revolted against a strong central government led by a powerful leader. Convincing the citizens of Maine or Georgia that a political power located far away should have influence and say over the direction of the state was reminiscent of the type of power and government they had recently rejected. The thinking involved in bringing the American Constitution into being was truly revolutionary, and required skillful politics, careful persuasion, and dynamic leadership from a handful of America's most beloved founding fathers to change the minds and opinions of a diverse group of citizens across the new nation.
Tagged American Revolution, Founding Fathers, Government, PoliticsLeave a comment
American Nationhood Had a Top-Down Start
The human mind seems to be very comfortable with dichotomies, and we are very good at telling ourselves stories to make dichotomies work. We really prefer 'either-or' situations and 'this-or-that' decisions over settings that are more ambiguous and require decisions between multiple options and interpretations. The way we understand and view history, and how our history has shaped our present moment, is one area where our dichotomous though preferences can arise.
In his book, The Quartet, Joseph Ellis looks at the founding of the nation and offers some insight regarding the creation of the Constitution which runs against the vision of our founding that we as a democracy like to believe. In our country, we like to believe that American democracy was inevitable, a clear preference advocated by our citizenry, and pushed for by all. We look back at the revolutionary war and our founding and picture masses of people choosing freedom and making the right choices to lead our country to prosperity.
The reality however, is that our nation was much more fractious at its founding than the stories we live with, and our history is as full of top down decisions as much as it is full of bottom up preferences. From the very beginning, with the idea of a national government, our actual history has run against what we like to believe as a democracy has been the defining principle of America. Ellis writes, "There was no popular insurgency for a national government because such a thing was not popular." And he explains that our national government was built because, "a small group of prominent leaders, in disregard of popular opinion, carried the American story in a new direction." It is interesting to look back at our nation and see the role that popular support played relative to the decisions of an elite. When we think about what our nation stands for and how our government should operate and direct our path, we should remember that in the past we have made more decisions based on more options than the often dichotomous choices we try to chose from today.
Continuing on the focus of top down versus bottom up support for a national government, Ellis writes, "The obvious alternative explanation is top-down. All democratic cultures find such explanations offensive because they violate the hallowed conviction that, at least in the long run, popular majorities can best decide the direction that history should take."
To me this is a reminder that if I am not personally involved in studying an issue, and only understand it ephemerally from news and short stories, I probably should not consider my ideas or the popular ideas of citizens to be more valid than the views of experts. It is likely that we are not considering the full range of possibilities, and it is possible that what is popular and desired is not truly the best course of action. I don't think this means I should remove myself from debate, but that I should spend more energy thinking deeply about the perspectives of competing interests. I may never fully understand the choice in the end, but I should not decide, based on popular opinion, that a decision was either right or wrong.
Tagged America, Elites, Government, History, PopulismLeave a comment
Creating the Idea of the American Nation
The Civil War in the United States changed a lot of things. It brought about the administrative state in the United States and gave absolute sovereignty in our country to the national government, wrestling that sovereignty away from the individual states. Our Civil War occur nearly 100 years after our battle for independence, and it was the Civil War which cemented the idea of American nationhood throughout the world.
When our founding fathers created our Constitution they introduced a new idea to our continent, that ever was a citizen of one nation, and not just a citizen of an individual state. Today this is obvious, but at the time of the revolution, at the time of our Constitution's adoption, and even at the time of the Civil War, this was not clear. American's thought of themselves first as Virginians or New Yorkers, not as collective citizens across the nation. In his book The Quartet, Joseph Ellis explains this shift in ideology from the actions of Lincoln during the war:
"In 1863 Lincoln had some compelling reasons for bending the arc of American history in a national direction, since he was then waging a civil war on behalf of a union that he claimed predated the existence of the states. This was a fundamental distortion of how history happened, though we may wish to forgive Lincoln, since it was the only way for him to claim the political authority to end slavery."
Ellis shows that the idea that each state was part of a larger union, and that the union to which they belonged had ultimate authority over each state was anathema even in the 1860's. We fought the revolution as a group of united states, but we were not a united nation as much as a collective group of independent governments with aligned self-interests. Thinking back on the decisions made during the Constitutional Convention and at our nations founding requires that we remember that our Founding Fathers did not see our government and our associations as a unified whole, but often as a group of sovereign entities forming a compact. Some of our founding fathers did see the importance of American nationhood, and in his book, Ellis sheds light on the actions of Washington, Madison, Hamilton, John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, and Robert Morris to turn the nation into a cohesive sovereign entity, a concept that was not fully cemented until after the Civil War.
Tagged Government, The United States, UnityLeave a comment
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