I Six Sources of the American Political Tradition
[...]
One important source is Protestant Christianity, ... The political creed of the American Puritans ... was "covenantal theology"-a sort of Old
Testament Christianity that saw the American Puritans as New
Israelites whom God had chosen to build a godly nation in this new land
that would be "a city upon a hill" or a New Jerusalem. Their polity was a
theocracy governed by a spiritual elite of "visible Saints" who were
bound by a covenant with God to implement His divine law and by a
covenant with the people to respect their consent. Other dissenting
Protestants, such as Baptists, Quakers, and Mennonites, were not
tolerated by the Puritans, but the dissenting sects have outlived the
Puritans in later centuries because they have been less theocratic than
the Puritans and more willing to accept religious liberty. Though the
old Puritans are gone, a pale reflection of their original covenantal
theology remains today in the vision of a divinely chosen Christian
America among certain Protestants of the Christian Coalition (but
rarely among Catholics, for whom America has never been a chosen
land or New Jerusalem in the Biblical sense). Protestant Christianity has
profoundly shaped American political culture, providing the
inspiration for many social movements (including intense antiCatholicism
at times), and continues today in various diluted and
embattled forms.
This is the kernel of truth in the "Christian America" thesis. However,
orthodox Protestant scholars have rejected this thesis in part because it's bad theology. We continue:
A second source of the American political tradition is English
common law. Unlike natural law or constitutional law, common law is
loosely codified customary law-a compendium of practices, statutes,
and judicial decisions that together make up the historic rights and
privileges of Englishmen. ...
... In a recent book, The Theme is Freedom: Religion, Politics, andthe American Tradition, M. Stanton Evans argues that notions of freedom
and consent in America owe more to common law and feudal contracts
than to Enlightenment theories of individual rights. James R. Stoner
also notes the influence of common law on America's "unwritten
constitutionalism." Stoner argues that the long list of grievances in the
central part of the Declaration of Independence (largely unread today)
were taken from traditional English common law principles, such as
trial by jury, opposition to the quartering of troops without consent,
and opposition to taxation without consent. Robert L. Clinton also
argues in God and Man in the Law that many provisions of the U. S.
Constitution were specifically taken from English common law (a traditional, particularistic claim) and to the natural rights of all
mankind (a rational, universalistic claim) in justifying their actions.
A third element of the American political tradition is also part of the
English heritage, namely, an aristocratic notion of gentleman statesmanship.
Some of the great Puritan leaders, such as John Winthrop,
were gentleman rulers who appealed to social hierarchy as well as to
covenant theology for their authority. Many leaders of the American
Revolution, as well as many framers of the U. S. Constitution, were
members of Virginia and Massachusetts dynasties of political families
and social elites. Though not possessing hereditary titles or noble birth
in the feudal sense, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe
and others were not simply men of the people, either. They were
gentlemen politicians-members of the social aristocracy (some
possessing landed estates) who constituted an educated and cultivated
elite enjoying the leisure to devote their lives to politics, manners, war,
and scholarship.
The reference to "sacred honor" at the end of the Declaration of
Independence is undoubtedly a reflection of the gentlemen's code of
honor-a pledge to dedicate their lives, fortunes, and honor to the
cause of the Revolution. ... For the first generation of the American republic, they stood as
a quasi-aristocratic counterweight to the democratic revolution that
they fostered; and even those among them who were completely selfmade
men, such as Benjamin Franklin, were molded by the manners of
courts and aspired to some of the social distinctions of gentlemen. They
were (somewhat inconsistently) gentlemen politicians dedicated to
republican government.
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