Question #7: What are “legitimate foundation” and “legitimate authority” in political philosophy?
June 24, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment
| 10 Foundational Questions | Introduction | Question #1 | Question #2 | Question #3 | Question #4 | Question #5 | Question #6 |
“The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority. –Alexander Hamilton
Simply put, legitimate foundation means the will of the People at large, while legitimate authority is the express permission granted by the People to the government to perform some function.
Put together, they form the philosophical foundation of the powerful idea that man does not exist for the state, but that the state exists for man.
Legitimate Foundation
The idea that the government should exist according to the will of the People and solely to benefit the People at large was revolutionary in the 18th Century. Previously, governments primarily benefited those governing, or special interests.
The American Founders taught that the will of the People, as expressed through constitutional means, is the only solid, sustainable, and legitimate foundation of republican government.
This does not mean, however, that they were referring simply to the concept of majority rule alone, as we learn from Federalist Paper #51; the idea is to guide the nation by the will of the majority, while protecting minority rights (i.e. preventing the majority from taking private property).
Legitimate Authority
Thomas Jefferson spoke of legitimate authority in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote, “…That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”
The United States Constitution was the first (and to my knowledge the only) constitution to be instigated by, or to have originated in, the People, then ratified by the People. In other words, the People, through their colonial representatives, called for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Representatives at the Convention represented the People within their respective territories–not the government itself.
They were authorized by the People to do the will of the People. Our Constitution was initiated and created from the bottom up, rather than dictated from the top down. Then, after its creation by the representatives of the People, the Constitution was taken back to the People–once again through their colonial representatives–to be ratified, or accepted.
Previously, the historical norm was for the government–whether through a monarchy, aristocracy, or other form of ruler’s law–to dictate from the top down the laws and constitutional forms that the People must obey. As David Hume wrote in 1752, “Almost all the governments which exist at present, or of which there remains any record in story, have been founded originally either on usurpation or conquest or both, without any pretense of a fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people.”
Why It Matters
To drive the point home with these critical concepts, think of Read more
Question #6: What is more important–culture, or politics and government?
June 21, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment
| 10 Foundational Questions | Introduction | Question #1 | Question #2 | Question #3 | Question #4 | Question #5 |
“To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.” -Confucius
Although this is certainly debatable, it seems clear, when considering the four foundations of freedom, that culture is far more important than politics and government.
What I mean by culture is the social patterns, activities, mores, customs, belief systems, and sense of morality inherent to a society. It’s how the people at large behave in the absence of force. It’s how they view each other and their place in society and how they interact with one another.
In other words, in an aristocratic culture, poor members of society are unlikely to consider that they have the opportunity to attain a higher social status. In social democracies or meritocracies, however, individuals understand that they have the opportunity to be mobile in their social status. (And remember that there is a fundamental difference between a social democracy and a governmental democracy.)
Politics refers to how members of society make group decisions, and government is the institutionalization of force, or the way that political decisions are enforced.
Why It Matters
Although there is some overlap, morality is mainly the purview of culture. So if a nation has a government that stays within its proper realm–to protect unalienable rights–yet voluntary virtue is required to sustain this arrangement, then culture is far more important than its system of government.
By the way, it’s important to define morality, since there’s a tendency to think of morality only in terms of sexual purity. However, by morality I’m referring to a holistic sense of the word, a morality that includes far more than sexuality, including philanthropy, providence (or living up to one’s full potential and doing what they were born to do), personal responsibility, and stewardship.
Another way to explain the preeminence of culture of politics and government is through the principle of voluntarism, which states that the health of a society is equal to what individuals will do voluntarily without the force or assistance of the government.
James Madison explained this concept well in Federalist Paper #51. He wrote, “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”
In other words, he says that the primary way to preserve the society is through virtue in the people, but auxiliary precautions are also necessary, auxiliary precautions being the form of government.
For far too long, we’ve both depended on the government to do things we should be doing as private citizens in the realm of culture, and then blamed them when things go wrong.
It’s time for America to realize that our voluntary culture, or how we act in the absence of government, is far more important than anything the government does, since the government is nothing but a collective reflection of our private lives anyway.
Focus less on changing the government, and focus more on creating a family culture that makes illegitimate government functions unnecessary.
Recommended Reading:
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Giver by Lois Lowry
1984 by George Orwell
Move the Cause of Liberty by (1) subscribing to the Sentinel, a free weekly newsletter boldly illuminating the principles of freedom in a darkening nation, and (2) pledging your Life, Liberty, and Sacred Honor to the Cause by signing the Declaration of Dependence.
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Question #5: What are the four foundations of freedom?
June 16, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment
| 10 Foundational Questions | Introduction | Question #1 | Question #2 | Question #3 | Question #4 |
The Four Foundations of Freedom are:
- Private Virtue
- Public Virtue
- Widespread Education
- Auxiliary Precautions
The Founders consistently taught that, in the absence of these foundations, no society can survive, or at least maintain its freedom.
Private virtue means being a person of integrity; being honest in your dealings with others, being faithful in your duties to your family, controlling your appetites, etc.
Public virtue means to voluntarily sacrifice personal benefit for the good of society. For example, George Washington served two terms as President even when, as he was accepting the post, he wrote that it “would be the greatest sacrifice of my personal feelings and wishes that ever I have been called upon to make.”
Contrary to our modern conception of education, widespread education to the Founders didn’t mean job training; it meant classical, liberal education designed to teach individuals how to think, not what to think (see A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille).
And finally, auxiliary precautions are a society’s forms of government that ideally protect life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Auxiliary precautions include Legitimate Foundation, Legitimate Authority, Legitimate Role, Separation of Powers, Checks, Balances, Federalism, Written Constitution, Enumerated Limited Powers, Periodic Elections, Electoral College, and Factionalization.
Why It Matters
What matters most about the four foundations is their order of importance. The Founders understood that no free government, however enlightened, can survive unless the people that it governs are moral and virtuous.
Constitutional government is nothing but words on paper unless its principles are alive in the souls of the people; free nations get the government that they deserve. When a free people fails to internalize and exhibit public and private virtue, no government on earth can keep them from destroying themselves. On the other hand, people who cultivate and maintain virtue and value their principles above their privileges enjoy unlimited prosperity, peace, and happiness.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
James Madison added, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
In a free government, the People get the government that they deserve. The only way to maintain freedom is to maintain private and public virtue. This leads to the next question…
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Question #4: What is the American form of government?
June 14, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · 5 Comments
| 10 Foundational Questions | Introduction | Question #1 | Question #2 | Question #3 |
The most common–and grossly incorrect–answer to this question is that we are a democracy. The right–albeit simplistic–answer is that we are a republic. A more sophisticated answer is that we are a constitutional republic.
The most thorough answer came from James Madison, who said that our form of government is an “Extended Limited Commercial Federal Democratic Republic.”
By “extended” he was referring to geography–never before in history has there been a republic that covered so much territory.
“Limited” refers to the fact that the Constitution expressly defines what the government can and cannot do.
“Commercial” refers to our national character. The Founders said that there were three main national characters–martial, religious, and commercial. Rome had a martial character, as does China. Ancient Israel had a religious character. Since religious and martial-character nations tend toward tyranny, the Founders chose commercial.
By “federal,” Madison meant as much power as possible was preserved with the People, and that the federal government only existed for specific and limited purposes. The idea of federalism is that the closer one gets to the People the more power there is, while the closer one gets to the federal government, the less power one finds.
“Democratic” refers to the idea that we are a social democracy, although not a governmental democracy. Social democracy is the concept that intrinsic in our culture is the understanding that all men and women are created equal, that no individual is better than another, and that everyone has equal opportunity to succeed.
(As an interesting side note, Dr. Oliver DeMille, founder and President of George Wythe College, gives an updated version of Madison’s lengthy label. DeMille says that we are now an “Internationalist, Sometimes Constitutional (Except Where Prohibited By Law), Extended (Globally), Increasingly Commercial, National, Representative/Virtual/Popular Democracy, With a Technocratic Supremacist Court.” But that’s a conversation for another day…)
Why It Matters
As James Madison wrote Read more
Question #3: What is the proper role of government?
June 6, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · 1 Comment
| 10 Foundational Questions | Introduction | Question #1 | Question #2 |
According to the American Founders, the proper role of government is to protect unalienable rights. The government cannot rightfully do anything that an individual cannot rightfully do. In other words, if it is wrong for an individual to steal another’s property, then it is wrong for the government to do the same thing. As Cleon Skousen put it in The 5,000 Year Leap, the government should protect equal rights–not provide equal things.
Competing views include, but are not limited to, that the role of government is to distribute all things equally (communism), the role of the government is to take care of its subjects (democratic socialism), the role of the government is to expand its empire (martial societies), the role of the government is to “help the little guy” (democracy), and the role of the government is to promote the interests of “big business” (capitalism).
Why It Matters
By definition, government is force. Behind every government policy is a gun to the heads of citizens saying, “You will do this, or else…” Therefore, anything other than the philosophy that the proper role of government is to protect unalienable rights always has and always will lead to tyranny.
The more government tries to “help” society, the more tyrannical it becomes. Since the government does not produce, it can only take what others has produced to fulfill its aims. If it wants to provide welfare, it cannot do so without taking from one person or group of people to give to another. And since government is force, this is, as Frederic Bastiat said, “legal plunder.”
Question: Ideally, how, or by whom, should the poor and disabled be helped, if necessary?
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