Hamilton Cited Blackstone For The Opposite Position

"Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed, that the deity, from the relations, we stand in, to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is, indispensibly, obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever.

"This is what is called the law of nature, 'which, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid, derive all their authority, mediately, or immediately, from this original.' Blackstone."

-- Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted.

Very few people who read this appreciate the irony that Hamilton was citing Blackstone for the opposite conclusions to which Blackstone endorsed: Absolute Parliamentary Supremacy.

When inquiring on the "Christian nation" debate, I've seen some Christian nationalists try to dig further into that quotation from Blackstone and note how Blackstone, writing further, elevated revealed law (revelation) over natural law (reason). The problem for the Christian nation proposition is that Hamilton doesn't invoke revealed law in The Farmer Refuted, but only natural law. And he does so in a way to reach the opposite position that Blackstone did or would have reached on the American Revolution.

Blackstone died in 1780 after the American Revolution began. I know he was a Tory who taught absolute Parliamentary supremacy. Though I haven't yet come across any quotations of his where he directly addressed the American Revolution. I know when in Parliament, he voted against the repeal of the Stamp Act that was directed against the Americans.

Blackstone may have been an orthodox Anglican -- though I don't see him as a very zealous one. Though I have concluded that when Hamilton wrote The Farmer Refuted, he was a theist, though not an orthodox Christian. He became orthodox later on in life shortly before he died. But in any event, Hamilton is citing theistic natural law, not the Bible or revealed law against "The Farmer," who was a Bishop of impeccable (Anglican) orthodoxy: Samuel Seabury.

Liberalism v. Republicanism and the American Founding

On page 161 of "The Closing of the American Mind," Allan Bloom wrote: 

More serious for us are the arguments of the revolutionaries who accepted our principles of freedom and equality. Many believed that we had not thought through these cherished ideals. Can equality really only mean equal opportunity for unequal talents to acquire property. Should shrewdness at acquisition be better rewarded than moral goodness? Can private property and equality sit so easily together when even Plato required communism among equals? 

As interesting and important as Allan Bloom and the other Straussians are, they do tend to have their blinders. They write like Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau -- their shared ground, and their disagreements -- are the only important philosophers who impacted modern liberal democracy. But there were others. 

So when Bloom asks -- "Can equality really only mean equal opportunity for unequal talents to acquire private property?" -- he was referring to the Lockean-Madisonian "liberal" vision that prevailed during the American founding. And Bloom ascribes the sentiment -- "Can private property and equality sit so easily together when even Plato required communism among equals?" -- to Rousseau who indeed adhered to such a critique of Locke's notion of property.

But Rousseau was not the first. In fact, this dialog had been taking place prior to Rousseau where various notable European "civic republicans" (many of them British) made the case for economic leveling often using biblical arguments.

Eric Nelson wrote an entire book about those "civic republicans" and their Hebraic arguments. Of the many things of interest that Nelson notes is that James Harrington -- one of the key Hebraic republican figures -- made not only biblical arguments but also more secular Platonic ones. It could be that the later more philosophical type figures ran with the secular arguments, not the biblical ones. 

As Nelson ended the relevant chapter in his book on page 87:

But for most, the Biblical warrant for agrarian laws disappeared from view, leaving only the Platonizing edifice Harrington had built on top of it. Redistribution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would find a home in republican political theory, not because it had been authorized by the divine landlord of the earth, but because it was thought to secure the rule of a naturally superior elite. For contemporary republicans, this must seem a deeply unsettling provenance.

Rousseau and the Hebrew Republic

This passage from Gregg Frazer's thesis made an impression on me when I first read it. He discusses some of the sermons from America's founding era that argued on behalf of the patriots' cause. These particular sermons preached the Bible taught "republicanism." (When "republicanism" arguably is entirely a creation of ancient Greco-Romanism.)

The sermons seem to depict God's role as something similar to Rousseau's legislator; He disinterestedly established the foundational law for the benefit of society, but did not live under it. In their version and consistent with democratic theory, God established it all [quoting Langdon's sermon] "for their happiness" rather than to achieve the fulfillment of a sovereignty determined plan. By their account, God submitted the laws to the people for their approval and acceptance (as per Rousseau's legislator).

This was on page 393-94 of his thesis and then was adapted in his fine book and featured on pages 100-01. The conclusion that Dr. Frazer draws is that this notion that the Hebrew's had a "republic" is a more modern Enlightenment notion than a traditionally orthodox biblical understanding. Certainly, attaching Rousseau's name in a comparison illustrates this point.

Though Samuel Langdon, whose sermon was entitled "The Republic of The Israelites An Example To The American States," and was an American minister during the Founding era, actually drew from a prior European tradition. One you can read about in Eric Nelson's also fine book on the matter. 

What does this have to do with Rousseau? Arguably something meaningful. The Hebraic republicans about whom Nelson writes -- beginning with Petrus Cunaeus and also finding expression in figures America's founders more explicitly cited like James Harrington -- argued that the Hebrew Republic had an agrarian law that limited wealth and demanded redistribution. 

Whether the early exponents of the "Hebrew Republic" were traditional Christians or more philosophically minded thinkers using Christian theology as a fig leaf is debatable; but they ended up influencing later figures who tend to be understood as more modern philosophical types. Including Montesquieu, Rousseau and Thomas Paine.  

As Dr. Nelson writes on page 86 of his aforementioned book:

It is a measure of Harrington’s remarkable influence that, from 1660 onwards, agrarian laws would remain permanently at the center of republican political thought.  Writers from Montesquieu to Rousseau, and from Jefferson to Tocqueville, would regard it as axiomatic that republics ought to legislate limits on private ownership in order to realize a particular vision of civic life.  Before Cunaeus and Harrington, European political theory had been dominated by the unequal contest between two views of property: one which saw the protection of private property as the central obligation of the state, and another which saw the abolition of private property as the ultimate salvation of mankind.  Cunaeus’s innocuous semantic move in 1617 had opened up a “third way”—one which remains central to modern political thought and practice.  

I can't do justice to Nelson's entire book here. He mentions that Harrington put forth both a biblical and a more secular Platonic justification for Agrarian limits on wealth and consequent redistribution. It could be that the later more secular thinkers who argued for economic leveling picked up the more Platonic and left behind the biblical. 

But even someone like Thomas Paine, who by the way, I think is more clearly in the "agrarian-redistribution" camp than Jefferson, would use these biblical arguments and was clearly influenced by them. 

I could be wrong about Jefferson; if I understand Madison's Federalists 10 correctly, it rejects this "republican agrarian" vision of property in favor of something more "liberal" (for the era). Jefferson may very well have signed onto Madison's vision here. (But how to properly understand Federalist 10 will be a topic for another post.)

But I hope I demonstrated in this post how someone like Rousseau didn't just invent his egalitarian speak for the modern era. The conversation had been taking place for some time. And the thinkers who preceded Rousseau attempted to make serious biblical, "republican" arguments for the economic leveling by ascribing to the Hebraic republic an agrarian law.

(Personally, I don't find the argument convincing; I don't think the Ancient Israelites had either a "republic" or that the "Jubilee" constituted an "agrarian law" that should be models for later subsequent republics. But that's neither here nor there.)

Did Ben Franklin Believe in ... "Purgatory"?

This article from 2014 by John Fea (note I am quoted here) features one of the more interesting quotations from Ben Franklin, who was neither an orthodox Trinitarian Christian or a strict deist, but something in between. 

Let me say first, "purgatory" as used here is a shorthand for the notion that there is some kind of temporary purging or post death preparation of the soul before it enters the eternal bliss of heaven. However, others associate it with the Roman Catholic Church's exact dogma where that Church holds a "super treasury of merit," etc. 

I was reminded of this when discussing the issue with an Eastern Orthodox believer who is very anti-Roman Catholic and he rejected "purgatory," bitterly mocking it. But then he admitted his church/he believes in such a place of post death preparation of the soul before it enters heaven; but he would never call it "purgatory" which he associates with the Roman dogma (like them holding the keys to a "super treasury of merit") that he hates. 

But from a letter from Benjamin Franklin to “Mrs. Partridge” on the death of one Ben Kent. The letter is dated November 25, 1788: 

You tell me our poor friend Ben Kent is gone, I hope to the regions of the blessed; or at least to some place where souls are prepared for those regions! I found my hope on this, that though not so orthodox as you and I, he was an honest man, and had his virtues. If he had any hypocrisy, it was of that inverted kind, with which a man is not so bad as he seems to be. And with regard to future bliss, I cannot help imagining that multitudes of the zealously orthodox of different sects, who at the last day may flock together, in hopes of seeing each other damned, will be disappointed, and obliged to rest content with their own salvation. Yours, &c. B. Franklin.

FH Buckley: The Patriot King's American Friends

This was from the Winter 2016 edition of National Affairs by F.H. Buckley. It's on Bolingbroke's influence on the American founding. A taste:

While they abhorred the corruption of British politics, the framers turned to British writers, notably Bolingbroke, for diatribes on just how vicious such corruption could be. Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751), was virtually the prime minister for a time, and his skill in state affairs was celebrated by his friend Jonathan Swift. Bolingbroke was a Tory and a sometime-friend of the Stuart Old Pretender. Some in late-18th-century British politics thought history had passed him by — or at least wished it would. "Who now reads Bolingbroke," Edmund Burke asked. "Who ever read him through?" But then Burke was a Whig who took his political principles from the Revolutionary Settlement of 1689, and a romantic Christian, while Bolingbroke was a deist from the arid Augustan age. 

For the founders, however, Bolingbroke's jeremiads were essential reading. Adams, Madison, and Jefferson, among others, were all serious students of his works. For them, Bolingbroke was first and foremost an enemy of political corruption and an advocate for republican virtue. But if the Americans thought that British corruption might justify the creation of a republic, Bolingbroke had something else in mind. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Jefferson, Priestley, and Bolingbroke

Thomas Jefferson, after around 1800 was under the influence of the unitarian Joseph Priestley. And Priestley did, if I understand him right, think "the plenary inspiration of the Bible" was a "corruption of Christianity." (Meaning he didn't think the Bible was inerrant.)

However, I don't think Priestley ever, like Jefferson did, cut out entire books of the canon and bitterly ridicule various apostles and the books of the canon they wrote. (Like everything St. Paul wrote and the Book of Revelation.)

The English Deist Bolingbroke did, however.

Jefferson was likely influenced by Bolingbroke prior to Priestley. Yet, as an old man, Jefferson was still slamming St. Paul and the Book of Revelation like Bolingbroke did prior thereto.

So I conclude the old Jefferson's creed was like a cross between Bolingbroke's and Priestley's. (Jefferson also named Conyers Middleton as a key influence.) That's my preface to linking to a post I did in 2013 where I researched Bolingbroke's religion. Check it out! (Good comment section too.)

George Washington to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792

Quote:

Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes, that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far, that we should never again see their religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of Society.

James Burgh's Quaternity

Over a decade ago I found a passage written by James Burgh (in "Crito") wherein he gives an account of his Arianism. Burgh was an English Whig writer who influenced America's founders. Among other things, he arguably served as the intellectual intermediary between Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson regarding the term "separation of church and state." Jefferson got it from Burgh; Burgh got it from Williams.

I found of interest Burgh's use of the term "quaternity." As he wrote:

... The papists have thought proper to put the Virgin Mary into the Tr---ty, and call her the complement, or completing of it. That is, the F----r, the S-n, the H--y Gh--t, and the Virgin Mary, the undivided mystical four, or three, which is the same (for in a mystery, three is the same as four, and four the same as one; finite the same as infinite; human the same as divine) the mystical four, I say, are the tr---ty, or rather quaternity, that is, four different beings, some infinite, some finite, some mortal, some immortal, are only three beings, and these three-four beings, are the One, indivisible, simple, unoriginated Spirit, the first cause and fountain of being. 

No Protestant holds the Virgin Mary, who has these many ages been dead and rotten, to be any part of the immortal God. This is out of the question. But I would imagine, that to a person who denies the Athanasian doctrine, it should not appear a whit more absurd to put the Virgin Mary into the Tr---ty, or Godhead, than any other being whatever. All beings are equally different from and inferior to the Supreme; the S-n as much as the virgin; the virgin as much as a worm. ...

This old school, Enlightenment era, unitarian logic argues Roman Catholic doctrine is responsible for the error of Trinitarianism and sees a connection between Marianism and Trinitarianism. It argues the Trinity is as logically sound as the Quaternity. With Mary of course as the 4th Person in the Godhead. A short time later John Adams would write: 

The Trinity was carried in a general council by one vote against a quaternity; the Virgin Mary lost an equality with the Father, Son, and Spirit only by a single suffrage.

-- John Adams to Benjamin Rush, June 12, 1812. 

I would bet Adams got this sentiment from Burgh. 

 

Fea: "Jack Hibbs dabbles in American history and it is a disaster. We need another Dudley Rutherford moment!"

From Professor John Fea. It's about celebrity pastor Jack Hibbs "dabbling" in American history. Check it out here. A taste:

13:11 to 13:26: Hibbs suggests three things about George Washington. First, Hibbs says that the First Great Awakening influenced George Washington’s religious life. Hibbs should actually tell his congregation that Washington’s theological beliefs, if he had any such beliefs beyond his vague references to “Providence,” would disqualify him for the Calvary Chapel-Chino Hills elder board. There is no evidence that the Great Awakening influenced Washington in any way. Second, Hibbs said that when Washington attended church he listened to abolitionist sermons. Not really. Anglican ministers in Virginia did not preach abolitionist sermons. Third, Hibbs says, abolitionist preachers somehow convinced Washington to free his slaves. Wrong again. More on this below. 

13:26 to 13:57: Based on this inaccurate view of Washington’s religious faith and how he supposedly applied it to the problem of slavery, Hibbs says that Washington did not free his slaves during his lifetime because he wanted to protect them. If he freed them, Hibbs says, they would have faced ‘certain death” by a slaveowner on a neighboring plantation. (Apparently this other slaveowner was not attending the same “abolitionist Anglican” congregation as the Washington family.) Hibbs also assumes (wrongly) that things got a lot safer for freed slaves after Washington died. In other words, Hibbs is claiming that Washington wanted to protect his slaves from certain death while he was alive, but after he died he didn’t care anymore. This is a mess. 1

3:57 to 14:32: Hibbs is on a roll. The more passionate he gets, the more he plays fast and lose with American history. ...

What Oath (if any) did Jacob Henry take in 1809?

Check out this new article by Seth Tillman entitled, "What Oath (if any) did Jacob Henry take in 1809?: The Problem of Conceptual Confusion between State Religious Tests and Religious Test Oaths."

This is from the abstract:

The story of Jacob Henry is one which has been told and retold. It has been long celebrated, as a triumph of light over darkness, and of the progress of then-emerging American religious tolerance over older traditions of parochialism and intolerance. Our story starts with Article 32 of the 1776 North Carolina Constitution. That provision imposed a religious test:

That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.

Article 32’s religious test extended to four categories of persons. It extended to atheists—those “who . . . deny the being of God.” It extended to non-Protestants—those “who . . . deny . . . the truth of the Protestant religion.” It extended to non-Christians—those “who . . . deny . . . the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments.” Lastly, it extended to an amorphous category of persons—those “who . . . hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State.” A person falling into any of these four categories was not “capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.” The meaning and scope of Article 32’s language has been a matter of continuing debate.

In 1809, Jacob Henry was elected to a second, consecutive annual term in the House of Commons, ie, North Carolina’s lower legislative house, as one of two members for Carteret County. According to the standard narrative, Henry was Jewish. Legislative elections were held during August 1809. The returning officers reported those persons who had been duly elected, that is, the members-elect. On November 20, 1809, the House of Commons convened in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the members-elect qualified by taking their oaths. On December 5, 1809, Hugh C. Mills, one of two members for Rockingham County, put forward a motion to declare Henry’s seat vacant based (at least in part) on Article 32 of the 1776 North Carolina Constitution. The next day, on December 6, 1809, Henry gave an impassioned speech in his own defense before the full House. Many ascribe the authorship of Henry’s speech, in whole or in part, to Judge Taylor, a Republican. Henry’s speech made no express reference to his being Jewish, and his speech did not use the words “Jewish,” “Judaism,” or “Jews.” Afterwards, Mills attempted to introduce evidence to support his allegations. But his efforts to do so were immediately thwarted by William Gaston, the single member for the town of New Bern.

Gaston argued that introducing evidence was premature at this stage. In other words, Gaston argued that Mills’s charges were insufficient as a matter of law, and so the introduction of evidence was not necessary. Gaston further argued that if the House determined that an investigation of the facts were necessary, then proceedings should be directed to a select committee or the committee of the whole. Additionally, Gaston made the argument that Article 32 reached only “offices,” not members of the legislature—and so it had no application to Jacob Henry. Gaston’s lengthy speech was followed by extensive debate among more than a few members of the Commons. Subsequently, the matter was redirected to the House’s Committee of the Whole, which heard testimony from witnesses. The committee recommended that the House reject the motion, and the House voted in favor of the committee’s recommendation. Henry kept his seat. Some reports indicate that the Commons voted unanimously to reject Mills’s motion.

The Jacob Henry literature has been primarily concerned with two questions. First, why did the members of the North Carolina House of Commons on December 6, 1809 vote against Mills’s motion to vacate Henry’s seat? That is, what motivated the members—in the sense of politics, partisanship, and personalities—to vote as they did? Likewise, what constitutional or other legal or policy rationales (if any) did the members put forward to explain their votes? A surprising number of very different views have been put forward. Second, what did Henry’s victory against purported religious intolerance mean to his contemporaries and later generations?

This Article addresses a different set of (albeit related) questions. The focus of this Article is not on what happened on December 5 and 6, 1809 and why the members of the North Carolina House of Commons voted as they did. Instead, the focus of this Article is on what happened on November 20, 1809—in other words, what legislative oath (if any) did Jacob Henry actually take? Second, how have later historians and legal commentators described and distorted our understanding of the events of November 20, 1809? And, third, why did the December 6, 1809 debate on the motion veer so far from any substantial discussion of the actual underlying events of November 20, 1809? Admittedly, this third question cannot be answered with clarity.

Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance

This isn't entirely related to the American Founding and religion; though readers will relate to the language and terminology used here. From the article:

Mustafa Akyol, in his excellent new book Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance (St. Martin’s Press, 2021), speaks into this context. Having the privilege of meeting Akyol two years ago at a lecture he gave here in New England, I immediately felt a kinship with him by way of his work toward greater integration of faith and reason among Muslims, paralleling my own among Christians. We also connected over our mutual desire for better Muslim-Christian relations. In his newest book, Akyol states his intention to work toward an Islamic enlightenment that draws on Muslim tradition rather than Western values. For instance, while the initial centuries of Islam were intellectually diverse and vibrant, this was eventually replaced with a focus on jurisprudence or a legal culture, on dos and don’ts. (p. 12) Meanwhile, theistic rationalism, seeking harmony between faith and reason was surpassed by fideism, where faith does not need rational justification. (p. 25) Akyol summarizes, “The puzzle is this: When God tells us to ‘do this,’ or ‘don’t do this,’ does He educate us about objective values in the world that we could also understand on our own? Or, does He merely give us bare commandments whose very value comes from nothing but God’s own authority?” (p. 30) While the Mutazilites took the view that faith was largely compatible with free will and believed all humans have a natural ethical compass, the Asharites argued in favor of a more pre-deterministic view of the world, with which they eventually won the debate. Akyol offers helpful suggestions for Muslims to recover the integrated view of faith and reason.

Tench Coxe on Article VI, Clause 3 of the US Constitution

 Check it out here.

No religious test is ever to be required of any officer or servant of the United States. The people may employ any wise or good citizen in the execution of the various duties of the government. In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, no protestant can hold a public trust. In England every Presbyterian, and other person not of their established church, is incapable of holding an office. No such impious deprivation of the rights of men can take place under the new foederal constitution. The convention has the honour of proposing the first public act, by which any nation has ever divested itself of a power, every exercise of which is a trespass on the Majesty of Heaven. 

No qualification in monied or landed property is required by the proposed plan; nor does it admit any preference from the preposterous distinctions of birth and rank. The office of the President, a Senator, and a Representative, and every other place of power or profit, are therefore open to the whole body of the people. Any wise, informed and upright man, be his property what it may, can exercise the trusts and powers of the state, provided he possesses the moral, religious and political virtues which are necessary to secure the confidence of his fellow citizens.

States of Nature and the American Founding

See this article entitled "Natural Rights, Natural Law, and American Constitutions" by law professor Philip Hamburger for a comprehensive review on the subject. Hamburger is an ace with the primary sources. Though, when dealing with scholars like him who have their facts straight, it's with the "putting them together and analyzing them" part where the disagreements are apt to occur.

And indeed, while there are plenty of contentious assertions, arguments and analyses in Hamburger's article, it also serves as a valuable resource of primary sources. One of the things I find fascinating about the "state of nature"/social contract and rights teachings is that the pulpit -- "election sermons" -- was a chief vector for transmitting these teachings.

It's ironic because the "state of nature"/social contract and rights is not a traditional biblical or Christian concept. But the patriotic preachers embraced it.

As Hamburger notes on page 12/917 of his article:

Election sermons contained a wealth of rather conventional political theory. One Connecticut minister began an election sermon on divine government by explaining that civil government had been "so often, and so well treated of upon such Occasions as this; that it is needless to add any thing ...on this Subject." From another point of view, the polemical Dean of Gloucester worried about the influence of American ministers and complained of "their preferring and inculcating principles of Mr. Lock instead of the Gospel, relative to the original titles of civil governors."

Before I get deeper in Hamburger's research let me note a few things his article doesn't. First the concept of "the state of nature"/social contract and rights ties together three big philosophers of "modernity": Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. America followed Locke, not the other two.

However, the three philosophers are connected by a shared common philosophical ground (what Leo Strauss termed the "low but solid ground" of modernity). For our purpose, Hobbes initiated the concept, however even he wasn't the first to do so. Rather, we can trace it back to William of Ockham. 

(One critique of that "common ground" -- and this includes Ockham who predated the other three -- is the concept of the "state of nature" seems philosophically nominalist; but that's a discussion for another day.)

But again, America followed Locke's understanding of the concept. On pages 12-13/918-19, Hamburger summarizes America's understanding of Locke's teachings:  

... On the assumption that the state of nature was a condition in which all humans were equally free from subjugation to one another-in which individuals had no common superior, Americans understood natural liberty to be the freedom of individuals in the state of nature. That is, they understood natural liberty to be the freedom an individual could enjoy as a human in the absence of government. A natural right was simply a portion of this undifferentiated natural liberty. Accordingly, Americans often broadly categorized natural rights as consisting of life, liberty and property, or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Americans could, however, be more specific. They repeatedly said that the free exercise of religion or freedom of conscience was a natural right. They also talked of the freedom of speech and press as a natural right. ...

See also JOHN LOCKE, TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT 322 (Peter Laslett ed., 2d ed. 1967) (bk. UI, ch. VI, § 54) as cited in Hamburger's article on pages 13/918. 

The bottom line is that a government was formed via social contract where because of "inconveniences" in the "state of nature," society banded together.

What I find of interest in Hamburger's article is that it shows where Americans disagreed on exactly how to apply Locke's concept. I find it of interest, and perhaps this relates to why Americans disagreed here, because I don't fully yet understand it: American Lockeans disagreed on what portion of natural liberty, if any, was surrendered when individuals came out of the state of nature and formed a social contract?

As Prof. Hamburger writes on pages 41-42/946-47 of his article:

... Jefferson similarly denied the commonplace that individuals in the state of nature sacrificed some of their natural liberty to government to preserve the rest: "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another .... When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions; and the idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society we give up any natural right." Letter from Thomas Jefferson to F.W. Gilmer (June 7, 1816), 11 THE WORKS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, at 534 (Paul L. Ford ed., 1888) ....

The truism that men sacrificed some of their liberty to government rested upon the assumption, frequently made explicit, that the liberty given up was the physical freedom or power to do as one pleased without subjugation to others. [Nathaniel] Chipman and Jefferson, however, incongruously discussed the formation of government in terms of the other, less expansive type of natural freedom-the noninjurious or moral liberty defined by natural law. Having done this, they had no difficulty denying that any natural right was sacrificed. They thereby attempted to confute a traditional maxim of political theory by misstating one of its well-known presuppositions. Of course, it was Jefferson who took this refutation and gave it an unusually dramatic and extreme formulation. 

And then on page 53/958 Prof. Hamburger writes: 

Most dramatically, the account of natural liberty presented here can help us understand what might otherwise appear to be contradictions or paradoxes in constitutional law. For example, Jefferson said both that natural rights were sacrificed to civil society and that no natural rights were sacrificed to civil society.135 Theophilus Parsons similarly seemed to contradict himself. ...

Insofar as I understand his argument, Hamburger argues that the consensus of Americans believed, coming out of the state of nature where they possessed natural liberty, they surrendered their natural rights for civil rights, as per the social contract. This is also what East Coast Straussians like Walter Berns (cited elsewhere in Hamburger's article) have argued. Others like Thomas Jefferson and some other less "key" (well known) Founders (like Chipman and Parsons) believed people surrendered none of their natural rights when forming civil society. 

But they were the outliers. (By the way, I'm not convinced Hamburger's analysis is correct, here.)

Hebrew Republic and Distributivism

The other day on my social media, a traditional orthodox Christian friend, sympathetic towards laissez faire economic policy questioned whether there was in fact a "biblical" case for "redistributionist" oriented economic policy. I think in short there is "biblical case" for all sorts of things under sun, but what I responded with below relates to the same history that interests this blog. My comment:
_________________________________________

Well, a nuanced argument [that the Bible, properly interpreted teaches economic redistribution] does exist; though admittedly as a libertarian, I don't find it convincing. And I question whether it's good theology.

But people who think that collectivist thought jumped right from Plato to Rousseau to Marx are ignorant of the biblical sources and arguments for redistribution. I don't think this argument prevailed in America (Madison's vision that rejected the argument did).

But it was noteworthy and could be "cherry picked" if one wanted a biblical and originalist case for it. It's one of the narratives of Eric Nelson's book [The Hebrew Republic]. The "republicans" v. the "liberals." Madison's vision was "liberal." The "republican" position was that of biblical redistributionism. It's the same folks who argued the Ancient Israelites had a "republic" also imputed the concept of "Agrarian laws" to the OT Jubilee and argued it was applicable to the then era (17th century onwards). 

William Livingston's Political Philosophy

This article by Myron Magnet details the political philosophy of American founder William Livingston. I may have reproduced it before (from 2012); but I read it again and the following passage stuck out at me.

At its heart, the college debate was political, and it led Livingston to set forth his deepest political beliefs, the first public exposition of Lockean social-contract theory in the colonies, complete with Locke’s insistence on the right to resist and depose a monarch. Journalistic and unsystematic, his half-dozen essays on the subject add up to a coherent argument that provided the Revolution’s key justification. Untangled, it runs like this.

Before there was any government, nature made men free and equal and endowed them with rights. Yet people voluntarily “consented to resign that Freedom and Equality” and put themselves under “the Government and Controul of” a ruler, as “a Remedy for the Inconveniences that sprang from a State of Nature, in which . . . the Weak were a perpetual Prey to the Powerful.” To “preserve to every Individual, the undisturbed Enjoyment of his Acquisitions, and the Security of his Person,” men “entered into Society” and appointed magistrates or kings “to decide Controversies,” investing them “with the total Power of all the Constituents, subject to the Rules and Regulations agreed upon by the original Compact, for the Good of the Community.”

This was a choice of the lesser of two evils, for “Government, at best, is a Burden, tho’ a necessary one. Had Man been wise from his Creation, he . . . might have enjoyed the gifts of a liberal Nature, unmolested, unrestrained. It is the Depravity of Mankind that has necessarily introduced Government; and so great is this Depravity, that without it, we could scarcely subsist,” wrote Livingston, more strongly influenced by Thomas Hobbes’s vision of the State of Nature as a war of all against all than even Locke was. To guard against man’s inborn tendency to invade the “Person or Fortune” of his neighbor, he wrote, echoing Hobbes’s understanding of psychology, we “have ceded a Part of our original Freedom, to secure to us the rest.”

 

Some scholarly folks have noted that the philosophers' "state of nature"/social contract and rights theory is kind of ridiculous. 

Perhaps it was, but it was also fundamental to the American Revolution (more the Revolution than writing and ratifying of the US Constitution). 

I admit that this theory has nothing to do with the Bible or classical political philosophy. However, the interesting part of the story is many ministers bought into this theory, incorporated it into the pulpit in order to convince populations of American "Christians" to go along with it.

AU: "The Faith of Our (Founding) Father: George Washington Wasn't As Pious As Christian Nationalists Would Have You Believe"

From Rob Boston. Check it out here. A taste:

While in private life, Washington attended church services about once a month. As president, he attended more often, and while he undoubtedly believed in faith as an important component of public virtue, nothing in his personal behavior indicates a high degree of attachment to conservative Christian dogma. He had a habit of leaving services before communion, a practice that angered some pastors.

Nor was Washington one to spend Sundays in quiet prayer and contemplation. Accounts of enslaved people from Mount Vernon plantation speak of frivolity on Sunday, with drinking and card playing being the norm.

Claude Blanchard, a French military officer who dined with Washington, later wrote in his journal that he was surprised there was no formal grace. Blanchard noted, “We remained a very long time at the table. They drank 12 or 15 healths with Madeira wine. In the course of the meal beer was served and grum, rum mixed with water.”

When Washington died in December 1799, he broke with custom of the day and did not call for a minister to be present at his bedside. Historian Joseph Ellis observed, “He died as a Roman Stoic rather than a Christian saint.”

Andrew Seidel: "Leave God Out of the Presidential Oath"

This is from Andrew Seidel of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. A taste:

The spoken words have been as deliberate as the written words. We know that Washington didn’t add the words to the oath. Edward Lengel, former editor-in-chief of the Papers of George Washington project, concluded, “any attempt to prove that Washington added the words ‘so help me God’ requires mental gymnastics of the sort that would do credit to the finest artist of the flying trapeze.”

Like so much U.S. mythology, including Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane, and the Headless Horseman, we owe this Washingtonian myth to Washington Irving.

American Creation's Ray Soller has done a great deal of very important detective work over the years on this issue.

John Milton and Isaac Newton: From Arianism to Socinianism

I need to put this book on my "to read" list. 

"In a book in progress, I will argue that Milton is an early adopter of a set of positions characteristic of the Newton circle of the late seventeenth century. Shared Arian belief in a preexistent Son precluded full agreement with Socinians, who believed that the Son did not predate the birth of Jesus. Nevertheless, Milton and Newton shared Socinian and quasi-Socinian positions, for example, an emphasis on reason and an attack on metaphysics in biblical interpretation, an insistence on toleration, opposition to infant baptism, and a focus on the exemplary character of the Christ’s passion as opposed to stressing the crucifixion as atonement. Complicating reliance on categories and labels, the boundaries between Arians and Socinians in the seventeenth century were sufficiently fluid that one of Newton’s circle, Hopton Haynes, described Newton as Socinian, while another, William Whiston, labeled him as Arian. Frank Manuel, a leading scholar of Newton and religion, describes Newton as some Milton scholars have described Milton, as Arian in theology and Socinian in religion."

This was often the kind of "Christianity" that elite philosophical types in the American founding lauded. Or at least they lauded Milton and Newton (and Locke, Clarke and others).