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.”