History: Not Just A Thing of the Past

The Articles Of Confederation

The Declaration of Independence is an important document, signaling as it did that the official purpose of our fighting was total separation from England. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson distorted the facts a little in order to blame King George III for some things that were really the fault of Parliament or of the American colonists themselves. Slavery is a good example of such an issue. After all, this practice could hardly be considered to have been imposed on the colonies by England. Slavery was outlawed in England itself, but flourished in the colonies--to the economic advantage of almost everyone, in the North as well as in the South.

Nevertheless, the Declaration did in fact state some extremely important first principles. Two of the most significant of these have to do: first, with the conception of the purpose of government; and secondly, with that of the legitimacy of government. As to governmental purpose, the Declaration suggests that governments are instituted among men in order to secure their individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. On the subject of legitimacy, the Declaration states that governments "derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," and that furthermore people have the right to change or abolish any form of government when, in their opinion, it no longer serves its intended purpose, that is the securing of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Let us consider the first point, that about the purpose of government. This statement is of utmost importance. It represents a vision of human beings and of society as a first principle, and a concept of government as a secondary principle--meaningful only in light of the first. In other words, the Declaration presents as its first principle a view of human beings and of society in which the basic assumption is that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. People have this right in and of themselves. They possess it as individual human beings, not simply for the purpose of supporting society or The State.

To understand how important this consideration is, we might note that Jefferson took this concept from, among other places, the writings of the seventeenth century English philosopher John Locke by changing one very important phrase. John Locke's formulation of this principle had been: "life, liberty, and estate"--the term "estate" being used then the way we would use the word "property" today. This was to be expected because the notion of private property was an underlying theme of British common law. It was one of the main mechanisms through which individual liberty was supposed to be protected, according to this legal and philosophic system.

But, Thomas Jefferson did not keep this formulation. He wanted to stress the ultimate goal of society as human expression, and not simply support the mechanism of the protection of private property which was assumed to be the best means to that end. And so, in the Declaration he stated that people have the innate right to life, to freedom (basically from authority such as that of The State), and to the pursuit of happiness--or as we might rephrase this last point today, to the pursuit of individual creativity or self-fulfillment.

This last consideration is at the heart of many of the humanist and utopian ideals so deeply ingrained in American thought. Whether we actually apply this to specific political situations, somehow in the back of our minds most of us share some sort of vision that the Good Society is one in which we all have the opportunity to develop ourselves and our talents and interests fully--whether these interests and talents be in the realm of art, sports, music, intellectual pursuits, hiking, fishing, biking, or whatever. What we find in the Declaration is a phrase "the pursuit of happiness" which epitomizes this vision which was certainly shared by many people of the Revolutionary Era.

However there is more to this story, for we have found this concept phrased in a very particular way. First, as we have just noted, Thomas Jefferson turned things around with regard to its original formulation, and suggested that the pursuit of happiness was the more important thing--rather than simply the protection of private property. This is not to say that material things are not important. We all realize that a certain level of material well-being is necessary and important for any type of human development. But the purpose of private property, according to the Jeffersonian formula, is as a means to an end. It is one element needed in creating conditions supportive of human happiness or self-fulfillment. The arbitrary accumulation of wealth is not and cannot be seen as an end in itself, according to this most important conceptualization.

The second point we have noted is that the pursuit of happiness was seen as fundamental to human beings for their own interests, and not simply for the good of society or The State. When some people argue today for the right to freedom of speech and other freedoms of expression, their argument is often couched in terms suggesting that the right to freedom of speech and other civil liberties is to insure adequate debate so that The State, or government, can function properly. In other words, what they are suggesting is that the justification for freedom of expression is for the purpose of securing The State. However, according to the Jeffersonian formulation as it appears in the Declaration of Independence, the rights to freedom of expression rest innately within human beings themselves, and do not exist simply for the perpetuation of The State. According to the Jeffersonian conceptualization, states or governments rather are established to secure the perpetuation of these freedoms for individual human beings.

Establishing a New Government

As we all know, the American revolutionaries were successful. England gave in to our demands and recognized our political independence. Following this successful revolution, it became necessary to establish a new government. However, there remained a great deal of fear of central authority as had previously been personified by the King. Since, as we have noted, the revolutionary struggle had to a great extent been played out politically between the local colonial legislatures and the royal governors, there also existed much fear of executive authority. Furthermore, the thirteen colonies--now states--were really separate political units and, having just fought off one overseeing power, they were not very much interested in establishing another.

Thus, when representatives of the new American states met in what continued to be called the Continental Congress, they formed a confederation as the first government of the United States. According to these arrangements, each of the states would maintain complete jurisdiction over its own citizens. The states would meet together simply for discussions leading to the formulation of policies which would foster their mutual interests. In other words, the new government which was established in a document which they called the Articles of Confederation was a government which consisted of independent states, and not of individual citizens.

Three Approaches to Territorial Political Organization

At this point in our discussion it would be well for us to consider the three basic ways of organizing the relationship between a central government and local governmental authorities. The arrangement which was established under the Articles was a confederation. This form of government gives the least amount of power to the central government, and keeps most power within local governmental structures--in the American case, within the states. In most instances, in fact, local governments in a confederation maintain almost total control over their internal policies. The purpose of the central authority is simply to maintain some degree of coordination, and to provide for foreign relations.

A second way of organizing powers between a central government and local governments is a federation. This governmental arrangement works under the principle of dual sovereignty in which both the local governments and the central government share authority over the people, and a careful balance of power is maintained. As you may be aware, the United States today functions according to federal arrangements. Thus, as citizens, we are subject both to the federal regulations of the national government and to the local regulations of the state in which we happen to reside. One may, therefore, be tried for criminal charges in state or federal court--or if one happens to be so unlucky, in both. In terms of civil, that is non-criminal, proceedings, we may make use of a state court or a federal court according to which has jurisdiction in the particular matter. In general then, a federation is a governmental arrangement in which central and local authorities share power and in which, at least theoretically, neither dominates.

The third type of arrangement of power between central and local governments is the unitary. According to this arrangement the central government has complete authority both over local institutions and over all citizens. This type of political arrangement exists today in the United States within each of our fifty states with regard to the sharing of power between the state government and the various local municipal and county governments. It is only the state legislatures that have the fundamental authority for making laws. All municipal, county, and other local forms of government are empowered to act only by grants of authority from the state legislature, which according to the provisions of a state constitution usually maintains the power to revoke the authority of local governments--again, at least in theory.
 
 

History: Not Just A Thing of the Past

The Declaration And Its Implications

The Articles Of Confederation