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Recording-2025-09-03T18:02:48.411Z

Context and big-picture ideas

  • The declaration is presented as neutral regarding democracies, yet questions remain about how the American Revolution relates to democracy in the U.S. context.
  • Tocqueville’s observation: Americans were born equal, due in part to historical circumstances:
    • English settlers tended to come from middling life and built more democratic institutions than contemporaries in England.
    • As Marx echoed Tocqueville, America did not inherit a feudal structure crushing the living.
  • Over ~170 years of colonial life, democracy was quietly being prepared, but colonial thought on the eve of the Revolution remained predemocratic: survival and practical self-government came first, not explicit leadership structures.
  • Hobbesian vs Lockean views of human nature:
    • Hobbes: without a central authority (the Leviathan), humans would descend into a state of nature with constant conflict; peace requires a powerful sovereign.
    • Locke (Lockean liberalism): human beings can cooperate to secure mutual interests while preserving natural rights; a foundation for a different view of human nature and government.
  • Tocqueville argued democracy in the American context is a culture, born from Lockean understandings, not just a formal declaration of rights. Democracy here is a social and cultural formation as much as a political structure.
  • The early American political project did not enshrine a formal declaration of democracy in the Declaration of Independence; the form and organization of government were left to later developments.

Key historical phases and ideas

Colonial foundations and the pre-revolutionary mindset

  • Colonial life prepared the ground for democracy through lived practices of cooperation and mutual aid among settlers.
  • Predemocratic thought on the eve of revolution: individuals needed to fend for themselves and figure out how to get along, not primarily how to rule others.
  • The early American experiment is frequently described as a culture of democracy rather than a fully developed democratic theory from the start.

The nature of human nature and political theory in early America

  • Hobbes vs Locke is used to frame how Americans thought about political authority and liberty.
  • The American experiment flips the Hobbesian expectation: rather than a single Leviathan, the new society sought to distribute power, check ambition, and foster cooperation across competing interests.
  • Tocqueville’s insight into American democracy as a culture continues to influence how we read the Constitution and republicanism.

The Articles of Confederation: design and weaknesses

Structure of the Confederation

  • The United States operated as a confederation under the Articles with a very weak central government.
  • Key structural weaknesses:
    • No executive branch to enforce laws (no real national executive).
    • No standing national military force to protect the new nation.
    • A unicameral legislature where each state had one vote, regardless of population (13 states, 1 vote each).
    • Very limited ability to raise revenue; lacked power to tax directly.
    • Foreign relations coordination was difficult due to divergent state interests and weak central coordination.
  • Consequence: foreign policy coordination was challenging; the central government could not compel state action or unify fiscal policy effectively.

Shays’ Rebellion as a test case

  • Rebellion occurred in Massachusetts; farmers who had fought in the Revolution faced economic distress (grievances over taxation and commerce).
  • Democratic but despotic: the Massachusetts legislature relied on pure majority rule (50% + 1) with little to no checks on majority power.
  • The rebellion highlighted the inability of the central government to respond decisively; private militias were hired to quell the revolt because there was no standing national army.
  • Machiavelli’s counsel: private militias should be hired if necessary but disbanded quickly to avoid future problems; militias are unreliable in the long term.
  • Lessons: reliance on private force and lack of centralized authority are dangerous; needed a more robust governing framework.

Foreign relations challenges

  • Dependence on foreign powers (Spain and France) and proximity to Britain created complex external pressures.
  • Coordination among the 13 states for foreign policy was difficult due to competing regional interests (coastal vs inland states).
  • These foreign-relations pressures pushed framers toward creating a stronger central government.

The path to a new constitutional framework (1787)

The call for a convention and why secrecy mattered

  • By 1787, most framers agreed that change to the Articles was necessary; Congress had become gridlocked.
  • A convention was called to amend the Articles, not to rewrite them piecemeal.
  • The plan to revise the Articles emerged from a desire to solve structural flaws that prevented effective governance and foreign-policy coordination.

The Virginia Plan vs. the New Jersey Plan

  • Virginia Plan (largely James Madison’s concept, presented early and in secret):
    • Bicameral legislature with two houses.
    • Representation in both houses based on population; thus, larger states would have more influence.
    • A national veto over state laws; a strong national executive with real decision-making powers; a new national judiciary.
    • Aimed to replace the Articles with a substantially new framework.
  • New Jersey Plan (presented publicly and widely supported):
    • Retained a unicameral legislature with equal representation for each state.
    • Some changes to procedures and a weak executive, but not a wholesale rewrite.
  • The Virginia Plan was shocking because it proposed a radical overhaul, replacing most of the Articles; the New Jersey Plan offered a more incremental set of changes and was initially favored by many delegates.

The Great Compromise (the Sherman compromise)

  • A bilateral agreement to resolve representation disputes and create workable governance:
    • A bicameral Congress: two houses.
    • House of Representatives: representation by population (larger states favored).
    • Senate: equal representation for each state (two members per state) to protect smaller states.
    • A national judiciary to be established; Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed by the Senate; the president would nominate.
    • The legislature would have broad powers over fiscal matters (taxation and related financial policies).
  • The compromise balanced competing interests and made national governance feasible.

Presidential elections and the executive branch

  • Electoral College: originally proposed as a body where electors would vote for president, not necessarily bound to the popular will of their state's voters.
  • The system would later evolve, but the initial design reflected a cautious attempt to balance popular influence with layered, deliberative selection of executive leadership.

The Three-Fifths Compromise and slavery

  • The Three-Fifths Compromise addressed representation for enslaved people in determining both population for representation and taxation.
  • Contested interpretations:
    • Some view the compromise as morally problematic and a tacit protection of slavery by giving slaveholding states greater political power without granting enslaved people rights.
    • Others argue it was a necessary compromise to secure the agreement of both Northern and Southern states and to avoid a complete deadlock.
  • Strengthening and limitations of this compromise:
    • The Constitution did not explicitly mention slavery but used language that allowed the slave trade to continue for twenty years after ratification (until 1808) before it could be abolished.
    • Governor Morris and other opponents publicly condemned slavery, but pragmatic considerations and political realities helped preserve the institution within the constitutional framework.
  • Post-ratification dynamics: some Northern states later passed legislation to curtail slavery through state law, using constitutional provisions as a framework for gradual change; others saw the Constitution as a vehicle to advance abolitionist aims in the long run.

Federalist debates