Gordon Wood, in the book The Creation of the American Republic,
rejects Louis Hartz’s theory that a liberal consensus has dominated American
political thought since the founding of the country (Wood, 1969). In Wood’s analysis of the evolution of
American political thought from the beginning of the American revolution in
1776 to the creation of a the country’s federal constitution in 1787, he demonstrates
that the political ideas that inspired the revolution and the subsequent
experiments with new forms of government were heavily rooted in the political thought
of liberal English Whigs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; however,
the interpretation of those liberal ideas changed substantially from 1776 to
1787 to the extent where we can say that a social revolution—and not only a
political revolution—took place (Wood, 3-45).
This revolution witnessed the collapse of British colonial authority with
its notions of monarchy and parliamentary sovereignty, and the emergence of
republic whose principals were based on popular sovereignty. Far from being blind
promoters of the political thought of John Locke, American politicians and
intellectuals of the era are shown to have conflicting ideas of how to establish
a republic. These intellectuals questioned the nature of English political
ideas such as the separation of powers, representation, sovereignty, and
bicameralism (Wood, 127-255). This period led to several radical experiments
with government at the local level and culminated in the creation of federal constitution
that sought to cap the more extreme political sentiments that emerged at the
beginning of the revolution. Furthermore, many of the cultural values espoused
by intellectuals in this time period were republican in nature as they emphasized
ideals like virtue, the public good, and temperance (Wood, 46-90).
One of the great strengths of Wood’s
work is the eloquent and sophisticated manner in which he weaves together the
ideas of dozens of prominent American intellectuals and politicians such as
John Adams, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander
Hamilton into his own writing. Over the course of 600 plus pages, Wood
demonstrates his extensive knowledge of the primary resources from the era. The
heavy use of quotations effectively shows that American politicians were not
blind receivers of English Whig philosophy but made substantial innovations of
their own as they were forced to confront the challenge of replacing their
colonial systems of government in a politically unstable environment. In
contrast to Hartz, who claims that Americans were not interested in
philosophical debate because they were so blindly devoted to Locke, Wood shows
through primary resources that American political thought during the revolution
was filled with creativity and debate. American intellectuals not only quoted
from Locke but writers from classical Greece and Rome such as Thucydides and
Cicero as well as writers from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment such as
Nicollo Machiavelli and Baron de Montesquieu. In other words, the primary
resources show that there was no liberal consensus.
It is important to note that Wood
does not reject the notion that American political thought was heavily
influenced by liberal English Whigs (Wood, 3-45). One of the critical political
arguments made by Americans in defense of the revolution was that they were
defending their rights as Englishmen. According to American Whigs, Parliament
had violated their right to representation, and the excessive power of the
monarchy’s royal governors in the colonies upset the balance of power that was
supposed to exist in a mixed government between the king, the aristocracy, and
the people. Colonial political leaders and intellectuals frequently quoted
moderate and radical English Whigs such as John Locke to justify revolution.
Furthermore, colonists already had experience with electoral representation and
legislatures prior to the revolution. Unlike Europe, America has no history of
feudalism or aristocracy. The structure of the American Republic that would
emerge by 1787 was partly inspired by liberal English political ideals and the
1688 English Bill of Rights.
With that said, many of the political
ideas held by American Whigs changed substantially throughout the course of the
revolutionary period. For example, the concept of representation in eighteenth-century
England was understood as being virtual and not direct. In other words,
legislatures represented districts that had large differences in terms of the
size of their populations, and only a small minority of Englishmen had the
right to vote (Wood, 162-96). Members of the House of Commons were not actual
representatives of a district’s population but virtual representatives based on
the fact that they came from the same class as the common people and had the
same economic and political interests. Some Americans did use the concept of
virtual representation to justify revolution by claiming that members of
parliament could not represent the colonies because of the great socioeconomic
differences between the colonies and the motherland. However, more radical
Whigs challenged the concept of virtual representation all together by claiming
that legislators should actually represent the voters of the districts from
which they come. Therefore, a citizen can only obtain representation through
the vote. From this perspective, districts should have an equal number of
voters, and representatives should be directly elected by the people. Colonial
intellectuals also changed their views on mixed government (Wood, 197-255). In
England, mixed government came to mean the balance of power between the
monarchy, the aristocracy, and the common people to prevent both tyranny and
anarchy. During the course of the revolution, radical Whigs came to reject the
legitimacy of monarchy as well as the legitimacy of an upper house in the
legislature that consisted of noble peers. The idea of mixed government in
America evolved to mean checks and balances between different branches of
government, and an upper house in the legislature would serve not as representation
for the aristocracy but as a check on the power of the lower house. Notions of
sovereignty also changed (Wood, 344-89). In Britain, sovereignty was vested in
Parliament, which contained the influence of all three estates in society,
whereas in America, the notion of sovereignty became vested in the people. In
the midst of the revolutionary fervor, Americans adopted the radical notion
that a constitution should be the supreme law of the land, which contrasted
with the British notion that parliament had the final say in terms of the law
(Wood, 259). It is important to note that these radical Whig ideas were
persistently challenged by moderates during this time period.
The radical Whig ideas of this era
were not empty rhetoric; instead, they manifested themselves in the political
activity of the colonists and the creation of new state constitutions in 1776. In
the 1760’s and 1770’s, radical Whigs engaged in a range of revolutionary
activities that included protests, boycotts, the formation of extralegal
political institutions, and the holding of constitutional conventions (Wood,
306-43). The thirteen states experimented with these new ideas in a variety of
ways. Most of the new constitutions of 1776 tended to create stronger
legislatures at the expense of the governor’s power (Wood, 127-61). New constitutions
also tended to mandate a larger number of representatives in legislatures with
a greater emphasis on actual rather than virtual representation (Wood, 162-96).
The state of Pennsylvania engaged in the most radical experiment by placing all
political power in the hands of a unicameral legislature directly elected by
the people. These political changes were
matched by changes in the culture. Republican notions of sacrificing for the
public good and living a life of virtue and temperance filtered throughout
society (Wood, 46-90). This contradicts the assertions of Louis Hartz, who
claims that ideals such as individualism and protection of property rights were
dominant before, during, and after the revolution.
While the ideals of radical Whigs
predominated in the early years of the revolution, Wood asserts that the
pendulum swung back to the moderates by the 1780’s. The political, economic,
and social problems that followed the revolution made many Americans doubt the
efficacy of the political institutions created at the beginning of the
revolution (Wood, 393-429). The weakness of the Articles of Confederation made
it impossible for the central government to deal with the countries mounting
problems. Furthermore, much of the population was still filled with
revolutionary zeal. Radicals were not respecting the legitimacy even of their
directly elected representatives at the state level. After Shays’ Rebellion in
1786, a constitutional convention was held (Wood, 471-518). Many of America’s
political elites were fearful of a tyranny of the majority and sought to create
political institutions that would protect the rights of
minorities—specifically, land owners. America’s political elites formed a new
constitution that placed checks on the majority by creating an upper house that
was chosen by state legislatures and the Electoral College for the indirect
election of the President (Wood, 519-64). Furthermore, a more powerful
executive was created through the presidency, and a strong central government
was formed to limit the power of the states. Individual states also created or
modified their constitutions throughout the course of the 1780’s to shift some
power back to the executive branch. While the Federalists succeeded in rolling
back some of the more radical reforms that were made during the revolution,
America was substantially different politically and socially in comparison with
the prerevolutionary period. With the English monarchy abolished in the
colonies, sovereignty rested with the people.
Overall, Wood provides strong
evidence against the idea that there was a liberal consensus during the course of
the revolution; however, less convincing is his assertion that America’s
revolution amounted to a social revolution. First, Wood spends surprisingly
little time conceptualizing and operationalizing the term revolution. One might
assume that by a social revolution, he means a rapid change in popularly held
ideas over time, but did American ideas change radically enough to constitute labeling
this period as encompassing a social revolution? Can we place this revolution
in the same category as the France in 1789 or Russia in 1917? A defender of
Hartz’s theory might read Wood and decide that his book only confirms their
theory since the founding fathers were all arguing from within the framework of
liberalism even if there were radicals and moderates among them. Furthermore,
Wood does not show that there was an American equivalent to Robespierre or Lenin. In fact, Wood himself asserts that America
didn’t have an aristocracy or a feudal past. Shifting from virtual to more direct
representation in government may not be as revolutionary as eliminating
aristocratic privileges or dismantling the Catholic Church. Finally, scholars
such as Joshua Dienstag have claimed that Republican concepts like virtue and
temperance actually fit well within the rhetoric of John Locke if we are to
frame his work around the Protestant Ethic (Dienstag, 1996). Perhaps there was
less social change during the revolution than Wood is claiming. While I am not fully
convinced that what America experienced was a social revolution, Wood does show
that there was a vibrant political debate among American intellectuals during
the revolutionary period and an extensive amount of political innovation on the
part of the founders.
Work Cited
Hartz, Louis. 1955. The Liberal Tradition in America. HBJ Book Harcourt Brace
Javanovich Publishers: London.
Dienstag, Joshua
Foa. 1996. “Serving God and Mammon: The Lockean Sympathy in Early American Political
Thought,” The American Political Science
Review, 90(3): 497-511.
Wood, Gordon. 1969. The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787. Norton &
Company: New York.
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