Horse Sense: American Chronology, 1776 to 1798

Chronological reasoning is a nearly lost art and skill, as teachers no longer teach important dates and citizens are no longer required to memorize them. It is easy after that to mix things up, easier for manipulators of the mind to lead you down a primrose path. It matters that the Constitution came after the Declaration of Independence. It tells you, for instance, that the Constitution qualifies the Declaration and not the other way around. It matters, because the Declaration was written to throw off an unwritten British constitution, which had devolved into tyranny; whereas, the American Constitution was written down, in full view of the Declaration of Independence, in order to give ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ a practical chance at survival, if these were ever to improve. Democracy was barely in the lexicon; liberty was prized above else. Indeed, the British constitution was almost universally revered by the Founding Fathers, except that, it had been corrupted by king and parliament. They felt that a republican system would be less susceptible to the same kind of experience and concentration of power that led to tyranny, at least if they divided power sufficiently and provided for checks and balances to keep it that way. Moreover, excesses endemic to democratic experiments, both theoretic and in history, gave the Founders pause for thought. They would implement a Republic, albeit, with important democratic provision for electing the representatives. In the early years, however, there were patriots who weren’t sure our Republic would survive; and anyway, they were vigilant to watch the signs of their times, in order to discern a direction to the fledgling nation. They were keen observers of precedent, lest their intent go awry and the Constitution be subverted. The Founders were committed to making the republican experiment work to be sure, but if there were a tendency amongst the Founders one way or the other, it was towards monarchy and not to mob rule. The signs of their times even threatened to make reversion to monarchy possible. Fortunately, the Founders and their polity were better republicans than we are.
At the birth of these United States, rebel-patriots and Founders weren’t interested in constructing a new constitution; rather, they were keen to shatter the old one. Their political imperative and the actions they took were to effect secession from Great Britain, leading only to “Independence” loosely defined. The principle they invoked to justify the imperative and their actions, is clearly spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. It was merely—and profoundly, that when a long train of abuses shall evince design to reduce the people to despotism, then “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.” The principle has been in place and must ever be, so long as the Republic resembles the Founders’ at all. Indeed, just two decades after, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison—that is to say, the author of the Declaration in 1776, as well as chief architect at the Constitutional Convention in 1787—both penned words in defiance to the new government they created! Again thinking chronologically, something by 1798 had forced them to clarify limits on power according to the Constitution. The particulars of this something amounted to a serious foreign policy crisis and ill-advised actions on the part of Federalists holding power at the time. Great Britain and France were at war, and the United States was caught between. “High” Federalists under Adams became increasingly anti-republican, even monarchical in character. The Federalist Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, in violation of the First Amendment, making it a crime to publish criticism of government war policies. In response, Madison and Jefferson wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions or “Resolves,” stating that the Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional and that States need not enforce them. Jefferson wrote Resolves for the Kentucky legislature; Madison wrote his for Virginia. The political climate thus created, both by further Federalist excesses and by republican opposition—including especially these Resolves, led to a popular political backlash against Federalists in the Election of 1800. Jefferson was elected President, and Madison became his Secretary of State. But not before they had clearly reaffirmed the principle of the Declaration of Independence to be in full effect, notwithstanding ratification of the Constitution. In the Kentucky Resolves, Jefferson wrote, “the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principles of unlimited submission to their General Government.” So whenever tyrants emerge and dare to reign, a quintessential American answer echoes the words of Jefferson and Madison in these great Resolves, written in full view of the Constitution, for rebel-patriots then as now.
_____________________
Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford. Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary. This article loosely based on a study of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions by William J. Watkins, Jr., Reclaiming the American Revolution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Email: wes@wesriddle.com.