Ideals vs Self-Interest: A False Dichotomy

Near the end of His Excellency, Ellis writes

The second long-term pattern in his thinking about slavery was a relentlessly realistic insistence that ideals per se must never define his agenda; indeed, he associated an idealistic agenda with sentimental illusions, like the belief that American virtue was sufficient to defeat Great Britain in the war....

Try to reconcile that with this—Washington setting an historic precedent in surrendering his sword.

The fact is the American Revolution was not just political. It included an implicit moral revolution. The new moral code implied was that of rational selfishness. As such, Washington was wise to reject the idealism that kept the world in slavery and darkness for centuries. America's practice of slavery was part of that ancient legacy that had to be addressed and Washington struggled with it, as Ellis reports.

In the end, American virtue did defeat the British. A new ideal—the virtue of rational selfishness—drove the American force. It is secondary that not all Americans shared that ideal. What was crucial was that the leading thinkers —the Founding Fathers—embraced the ideal, with Washington chief among them, literally and figuratively.

So, although I disagree with Ellis' ethical orientation, I admire and appreciate his work in his biography of Washington. I got to see Washington as the great, real man he was, not just some impassive face perched on a mountain. I got to see how fitting it is that he is the father of our country—a deeply principled, intelligent, moral man of action.

At the same time, I am grateful to Ayn Rand for arming me with the ideas necessary to navigate around the kind of conventional errors Ellis makes in his review and analysis of Washington's life. My respect and admiration for Washington is all the richer and more personal.

Hamiltonian Power and "Behaving Responsibly"

A light went on when I made a connection between Ellis' comments on force being used to get "both individuals and sovereign states...to behave responsibly" and his report of Alexander Hamilton's dangerous quest for power.

Ellis reports on page 250...

In collusion with disaffected and disloyal members of Adams's cabinet, Hamilton had hatched a scheme to transform the Provisional army into a permanent military establishment and an instrument for his expanded power within the Federalist Party. To be fair, Hamilton had convinced himself that Napoleon's imperial ambitions did include North America....[H]e envisioned marching his army through Virginia, thereby intimidating the Republican leadership in its major sanctuary, then launching a preemptive invasion of Florida and the Louisiana Territory....

He goes on to report that "Washington was unwittingly providing the imprimatur of his name to this wild scheme...playing directly into Hamilton's hands....At any rate, the moment exposed the dangerous tendencies of Hamilton's genius once released from Washington's control."

Whoa. Hold up. The dangerous tendencies of Hamilton's genius? More like the dangerous logic of the idea of forcing people to "behave responsibly". Hamilton's scheme strikes me as terribly consistent with that premise.

A Unified American Nation...for freedom

On page 202 of His Excellency, Ellis describes a 1790 attempt to end slavery. "Whatever [Washington's] personal views on slavery may have been, his highest priority was the creation of a unified American nation."

This formulation does not do justice to the magnitude of the deeper issue. A "unified American nation"? For what purpose?

America wasn't just a new nation. It was the first nation in history dedicated expressly to the idea of individual rights. It was radical. It still is, given how many are willing to give it up at the first sign of pressure.

But the point here is that it was fragile at its birth, as cited in Ellis' book. To be precise, protecting his own and his country's fragile freedom was Washington's highest priority and a unified American nation was the means to that end.

Did everyone understand that freedom? No. Was it universally applied immediately after millenniums of slavery across the world? No. The revolution had just started. Slavery was a horrible, "in your face" contradiction and the Founding Fathers knew it. Tragically, resolving that contradiction took time and rivers of blood.

Balance of Power

In my 2/7/08 post, I cited Ellis as follows:

Both individual citizens and sovereign states often required coercion to behave responsibly, which meant that the federal government required expanded powers of taxation and ultimate control over fiscal policy.

Among the problems with this claim, notice this core assumption: the federal government will "behave responsibly" in its use of coercion.

How right the Founding Fathers were to do everything in their power to assure a balance of power in our government. Too much power in one group's or one man's grasp is dangerous.

Check your premises.

Sacrifice: A romantic delusion

"Making voluntary sacrifice the operative principle of republican government had proved to be a romantic delusion." So writes Joseph Ellis on page 168 of His Excellency at the beginning of the section named Infant Empire in chapter 5.

Here, there is certainly a romantic delusion. Ironically, the delusion is the notion that sacrifice—voluntary or not—is romantic.

Ellis adds: "Both individual citizens and sovereign states often required coercion to behave responsibly, which meant that the federal government required expanded powers of taxation and ultimate control over fiscal policy."

The only proper role of government is to manage the use of force to protect us from force (and fraud)—be it from abroad, from our neighbors, and especially from the biggest force wielder of all: our own government. As Washington himself apparently wrote or said: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." Damn straight.

So, when Ellis associates, in effect, "behaving responsibly" with "sacrifice", he's in dangerous territory.

Sacrifice means to surrender a higher value for a lower value. Given this, Washington was certainly not sacrificing when he risked his life for years to defend everything he loved about America as it was and as it could become. He was gloriously selfish.

The greatest man in the world

Though I knew Washington had earned King George's awe (calling him "the greatest man in the world") when he surrendered his sword after winning America's independence from Great Britain, I did not know that he did so fully aware of the fates of the Roman and English republics at key points, that they fell to military dictatorships.

Ellis also reports that Washington's opinion of America's government, which, at the time, was only the weak Congress operating under the Article of Confederation.

So, while how America was going to work was not yet evident and not looking good under the Articles, one thing for Washington was crystal clear—how America was not going to work—i.e., under a dictatorship, not while he lived.

Not only did Washington lay down his sword, he stopped his officers from raising theirs. On this critical moment in history, Ellis writes: "Whereas Cromwell and later Napoleon made themselves synonymous with the revolution in order to justify the assumption of dictatorial power, Washington made himself synonymous with the American Revolution in order to declare that it was incompatible with dictatorial power.

This and all it implies is one of the most moving moments in history for me. It has earned from me an emotion that does not and cannot come lightly—reverence.

God bless George Washington.

A hero of the first degree

His Excellency continues to be fascinating and enjoyable. Ellis' is a good storyteller.

In his coverage of Washington, he necessarily touches on Nathanael Greene, who armed Washington with excellent counsel time and time again. While I am familiar with him, Ellis' work has given me a much closer look at him. I admire what I see, enough to put him high on my list of important figures to study. If anyone has a good biography to recommend, please leave a comment.

At a critical juncture, when Washington's competence is being questioned (with cause) and he was spoiling for an all-or-nothing battle, Greene reminded him that he had no choice but to fight a protracted defensive war. "Your Excellency," Greene advised, "has the choice of but two things, to fight the Enemy without the least Prospect of Success...or remain inactive, & be the subject of Censure of an ignorant & impatient populace."

Greene added that not only would Washington risk a defeat with another attempt to repeat the Trenton-Princeton successes of the previous winter in the current winter, but it would also "expose the weakness of the militia to the enemy and not only them but to all europe who now consider them much more formidable than they really are."

Washington accepts Greene's counsel even though its wisdom runs against his grain personally. Ellis writes that Washington's decision not to act "completed his transformation into a public figure whose personal convictions must be suppressed and rendered subordinate to his higher calling as an agent of history, which in this case meant that winning the war was more important than being himself."

While I agree with Ellis that this occasion merits special recognition, I don't share his summation in this case. I hold that there is no higher calling than this—to keep clear the distinction between the "I wish" and the "it is"; that is, to keep clear the difference between your emotions and your rational lock on reality. Washington does that in spades here, fighting through his personal emotions, his past conclusions to see the reality immediately before him, demanding a new approach to solve life and death problems on an historic scale.

In my book, this makes him a hero of the first degree, not because he suppressed his convictions but because he held mightily to his reason, to his ruthless objectivity to serve his admirably selfish interest in winning the war.

God bless him.

The American Cause

In His Excellency, Ellis reports that

widespread support for what Washington described as the "American Cause" was in fact cresting, and would never again reach the height it achieved during the Boston siege. "The spirit of '76" should more accurately (if less lyrically) be called "the spirit of late '75 and early '76," because patriotic fervor began to erode just as the war became politically official and militarily threatening.

Ellis goes on to report the following:

The mythological rendition of dedicated citizen-soliders united for eight years in the fight for American libery was, in fact, a romantic fiction designed by later generations to conceal the deep divisions and widespread apathy within the patriot camp.

Interesting. Among other things, this reinforces in my mind the importance of ideas as opposed to trying to accomplish very difficult (to put it gently) goals across time primarily on emotion. An emotion can carry you only so far. An idea can carry you forever, gaining momentum as you continue to feed it daily with your choice to honor it.

"A race of Amazons in America"

In His Excellency, I came across a particularly enjoyable slice of history.

The context is Washington putting his entire army at risk in the battle in New York during July 1776. Though I'm familiar with how narrowly Washington escaped the British here, I didn't know this—Abigail Adams, upon hearing from husband John that Howe was poised to close the trap utterly to destroy Washington's army, declared "even if all America's brave men were killed or captured...the British army would find itself opposed by 'a race of Amazons in America'".

Man, how I do like Abigail! I admired her when I first got to see her via McCullough's biography of John Adams. But the spirit of that statement sums up so much that is good, all I can say is "Wow!".

His Excellency

Mary surprised me with a gift perfect for me—a biography of George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis entitled His Excellency. While I've learned a great deal about Jefferson, Madison, and Adams, Washington has always been on the periphery of my knowledge. Now is a very good time to learn about him in a focused fashion.

The preface has given me a good feeling about Mr. Ellis, who is new to me.

For example, "[George Washington] is in our wallets but not in our hearts." Ellis cites Richard Brookhiser as the source of this quote. This immediately reminded of my friend's observation on how Turks commemorate Atatürk in contrast to how Americans remember Washington.

Well, as much as I admire Washington, I look forward to learning more about him, to anchor him deeper into my heart. I especially look forward to Ellis' scholarship in light of the context in which he writes. For example, in his preface, he reports:

...the reigning orthodoxy in the academy regards Washington as either taboo or an inappropriate subject, and any aspiring doctoral candidate who declares an interest in, say, Washington's career as a commander in chief, or president, has inadvertently confessed intellectual bankruptcy.

Properly, Ellis criticizes this orthodoxy as "thoroughly ahistorical and presentistic." At the same, Ellis writes that he seeks to avoid portraying Washington as a cartoon hero. In short, he says he seeks to portray Washington, the man free of myth.

To this end, he closes his preface with this astute observation:

It seemed to me that Benjamin Franklin was wiser than Washington; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; Thomas Jefferson was more intellectually sophisticated; James Madison was more politically astute. Yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior. Within the gallery of greats so often mythologized and capitalized as Founding Fathers, Washington was recognized as primus inter pares, The Foundingest Father of them all. Why was that?

I look forward to seeing how Mr. Ellis tackles this question.

A miracle

On October 24, 1781, Madison wrote to Jefferson his latest report on the Constitutional Convention. In that particularly long letter, I enjoyed reading this excerpt:

Hence was embraced the alternative of a Government which instead of operating, on the States, should operate without their intervention on the individuals composing them: and hence the change in the principle and proportion of representation.

This ground-work being laid, the great objects which presented themselves were

1. to unite a proper energy in the Executive and a proper stability in the Legislative departments, with the essential characters of Republican Government.

2. to draw a line of demarkation which would give to the General Government every power requisite for general purposes, and leave to the States every power which might be most beneficially administered by them.

3. to provide for the different interests of different parts of the Union.

4. to adjust the clashing pretensions of the large and small States.

Each of these objects was pregnant with difficulties. The whole of them together formed a task more difficult than can be well concieved by those who were not concerned in the execution of it. Adding to these considerations the natural diversity of human opinions on all new and complicated subjects, it is impossible to consider the degree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle.[Emphasis added.]

Miracle indeed! Bless the Age of Enlightenment for producing the epoch changing accomplishment that summed up in the birth of America!

Here's to the next Renaissance on the long road of reason to complete the revolution America's Founders started.

Did Lincoln Steal A Famous Phrase from Madison?

Did Lincoln steal his famous "preserve the union" phrase from Madison or some other Founding Father? I've now seen Madison use the phrase more than once. The latest example I found follows:

It appeared to be the sincere and unanimous wish of the Convention to cherish and preserve the Union of the States. No proposition was made, no suggestion was thrown out, in favor of a partition of the Empire into two or more Confederacies

If Lincoln did steal it from Madison, he ignored what Madison immediately said next:

It was generally agreed that the objects of the Union could not be secured by any system founded on the principle of a confederation of sovereign States. A voluntary observance of the federal law by all the members, could never be hoped for. A compulsive one could evidently never be reduced to practice, and if it could, involved equal calamities to the innocent & the guilty, the necessity of a military force both obnoxious & dangerous, and in general, a scene resembling much more a civil war, than the administration of a regular Government.

Even if Lincoln had read Madison's prescient observation, his statist ambition would have ignored it. For more details, check out The Real Lincoln.

Madison on the Constitutional Convention

Two years before George Washington became the first president of the United States, James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson about constitutional convention and the mood prior to publishing its conclusions. He wrote:

Nothing can exceed the universal anxiety for the event of the Meeting here. Reports and conjectures abound concerning the nature of the plan which is to be proposed. The public however is certainly in the dark with regard to it. The Convention is equally in the dark as to the reception wch. may be given to it on its publication. All the prepossessions are on the right side, but it may well be expected that certain characters will wage war against any reform whatever. My own idea is that the public mind will now or in a very little time receive any thing that promises stability to the public Councils & security to private rights, and that no regard ought to be had to local prejudices or temporary considerations. If the present moment be lost it is hard to say what may be our fate.

[Emphasis added]

Indeed, what would have been our fate?

The entire letter in which this quote appears is available here

Madison on Factions

While continuing to read Madison at my slow pace, I took a moment to browse the net for some references to him. That effort showed me this gem of a site. It shows a considerable amount of the material I've found in the book I'm reading, published by the Library of America. The site layout is clear and easy to follow.

The particular passage I was hoping to find was there. You can see the entire dialogue here. The excerpts I found most interesting follow.

Speaking of the logic supporting a national government, Madison said:

he combined with [that logic] the necessity of providing more effectually for the security of private rights, and the steady dispensation of Justice. Interferences with these were evils which had more perhaps than any thing else, produced [the Constitutional] convention. Was it to be supposed that republican liberty could long exist under the abuses of it practised in some of the States.

Madison agreed with a contention that in a very small state "faction & oppression would prevail". He noted how civilized societies are

divided into different Sects, Factions, & interests, as they happened to consist of rich & poor, debtors & creditors, the landed, the manufacturing, the commercial interests, the inhabitants of this district or that district, the followers of this political leader or that political leader, the disciples of this religious Sect or that religious Sect.

This led him to an important question:

In all cases where a majority are united by a common interest or passion, the rights of the minority are in danger. What motives are to restrain them?

What indeed?

A prudent regard to the maxim that honesty is the best policy is found by experience to be as little regarded by bodies of men as by individuals. Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided. Conscience, the only remaining tie, is known to be inadequate in individuals: In large numbers, little is to be expected from it. Besides, Religion itself may become a motive to persecution & oppression.

In the following excerpt, I admire how history is brought to bear on the significance of the decisions to be made in the present of his day.

These observations are verified by the Histories of every Country antient & modern. In Greece & Rome the rich & poor, the creditors & debtors, as well as the patricians & plebians alternately oppressed each other with equal unmercifulness. What a source of oppression was the relation between the parent cities of Rome, Athens & Carthage, & their respective provinces: the former possessing the power, & the latter being sufficiently distinguished to be separate objects of it? Why was America so justly apprehensive of Parliamentary injustice? Because G. Britain had a separate interest real or supposed, & if her authority had been admitted, could have pursued that interest at our expence. We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.

This passage gave me pause to reflect on a future era's Madison looking at the sweep of history, picking up where Madison left off, armed to the teeth with the intellectual ammunition afforded him by Ayn Rand's powerful ideas. Madison continues:

What has been the source of those unjust laws complained of among ourselves? Has it not been the real or supposed interest of the major number? Debtors have defrauded their creditors. The landed interest has borne hard on the mercantile interest. The Holders of one species of property have thrown a disproportion of taxes on the holders of another species. The lesson we are to draw from the whole is that where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure. In a Republican Govt. the Majority if united have always an opportunity.

Madison's conclusion:

The only remedy is to enlarge the sphere, & thereby divide the community into so great a number of interests & parties, that in the 1st. place a majority will not be likely at the same moment to have a common interest separate from that of the whole or of the minority; and in the 2d. place, that in case they shd. have such an interest, they may not be apt to unite in the pursuit of it. It was incumbent on us then to try this remedy, and with that view to frame a republican system on such a scale & in such a form as will controul all the evils wch. have been experienced.

I marvel at not only the calibre of Madison's effort but the nature of the audience he had to be addressing to share this passionate focus on protecting everyone's rights. What an era!

Madison Against Religious Assessments

Currently, I'm reading the writings of James Madison. Knowing little of him, I decided to go straight to his own writings instead of a finding a biography. If you know a good biography to recommend, please do.

So far, I've found his prose generally hard to follow. At the same time, I've found the calibre of his thought worth the effort.

Today, I came across his opposition to an attempt in Virgina in 1785 to pass a bill "establishing a provision for teachers of the Christian religion". He didn't just call it a "dangerous abuse of power"; he showed why he reached that conclusion.

His opposition was addressed to the general assembly of the commonwealth of Virgina. Among the 15 points he made, here are some highlights, the best of his prose I've enjoyed so far:

Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those minds who have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us.

Look at that. Look at its total respect for the individual mind to reach its own conclusions at its own pace free from force on principle. Beautiful.

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.

What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people.... A just government instituted to secure & perpetuate [liberty] needs them not.

[Emphasis added]

Instead of holding forth an Asylum to the persecuted [and oppressed of every Nation and Religion], it is itself a signal of persecution.... Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance. The magnanimous sufferer under the cruel scourge in foreign Regions, must view the Bill as a Beacon on our Coast, warning him to seek some other haven, where liberty and philanthropy in their due extent, may offer a more certain repose from his Troubles.

I'm happy to say that I still have much more to read!

Jefferson-The DNA Myth

Here's a 200 year old smear resurrected as a modern myth masquerading as science -- Thomas Jefferson had a decades long affair with slave Sally Hemings.

How did this myth get started and why? What gave this myth "legs"; that is, what factors led so many people to accept it as if it were a hard fact?

It's a long story.

Fortunately, a concise, objective analysis is available from The Intellectual Activist (TIA) at www.tiadaily.com.

You can buy the issue containing the article -- "The Anti-Jefferson Revolution: Academic Irrationalism and the Sally Hemings Controversy" -- for a few dollars. If you value justice and the freedom Jefferson helped bestow on America, you have an opportunity to put your money where your ideas are. I urge you to buy and digest this intellectual ammunition.

Here, I will comment on what has led so many good people to accept the myth as if it were hard fact. It's the alleged DNA evidence. Scan the internet and you'll find many references to it. The trouble is this -- there is no DNA evidence linking Thomas Jefferson to Sally Hemings.

The TIA article reports "the available genetic evidence could not prove that Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings, but it did prove that a Jefferson rather than a Carr fathered him." [Emphasis added] "Demanding proof of a negative, Foster [author of a 11/5/98 British scientific journal Nature on the DNA analysis] argued, 'in the abscence of historical evidence' to support paternity by another Jefferson, that 'Thomas Jefferson, rather than one of the Carr brothers, was the father of Eston Hemings Jefferson, and that Thomas Woodson was not Thomas Jefferson's son.' For his 'historical evidence,' the retired pathologist relied upon the original Callender article, Fawn Brodie's Freudian psychobiography, and Joe Ellis's American Sphinx."

Callender is the man who started the smear in the 18th century. In the 20th, the smear was dressed up under the guise of pseudo-science. However, lipstick on a pig does not change its nature.

Jefferson once wrote the following: "Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."

If ever there was a challenge to the best within you, this is it. Apply this powerful advice to the case at hand ... as well as to the rest of your ideas and values.

The Real Lincoln

The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

This book has altered my view of the American Civil War. For the first time in my life, I have sympathy for the Southern cause. No, not for slavery. That abomination had to end. The South's cause was states' rights. But their horrible contradiction was trying to apply states rights to deny others their rights. As such, it was properly doomed.

That said, that did not make the North's cause automatically just. Had the North declared, at the outset, that its mission was to free the slaves, then its cause would have been just. It would have had the moral right to crush the South by any means necessary.

But it didn't. In yet another horrible contradiction, it felt it had the right to deny others their rights. The Civil War was a cataclysmic orgy of abusing the rights of others.

The North's goal was to stop the South from seceding. The purpose behind that was not to "save the Union" but to crush opposition to Lincoln's goal -- to implement on a national level statist ambitions he had failed to accomplish on a state level for 3 decades. Standing in his way was the constitution -- on state level as well as national. More, the staunchest advocates of states' rights, tragically, were Southerners.

This and more is covered in DiLorenzo's book. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in a fresh perspective on the Civil War and its significant, tragic impact of American life and politics ever since.

I encourage and welcome comments on the book.