Following the hot summer of 1787, the American people had a difficult decision before them: would they ratify a new and stronger federal Constitution or retain a central government with so little power that it had no ability to pay the debts incurred by the War for Independence? Debate followed—in churchyards, sitting rooms, and likely taverns up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Writing under pseudonyms like “Publius,” the “Federal Farmer,” and “Aristocrotis,” Madison, Hamilton, and other lesser-known Americans authored defenses of theto critique the newly proposed Constitution.
At the time of the ratification, the debate between centralized government and localized power became the center of the media, and essays were published weekly in newspapers up and down the coast. Even the cobblers and unschooled read these essays, known as the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers; yet, in modern society, many teachers assume that high school students cannot comprehend the most coherent and brilliant defense of republican government. In introductory politics courses, college freshmen struggle to unpack the peculiar language of the founding era..
In an attempt to revive the tradition of the Founders, the authors of “A Constitutional Conversation: The Complete Letters of an Ohio Farmer” (Ashbrook Center, 280 pages, $9.95) engages citizens’ as it urges them to examine the purpose of government and participate in the political process. The book is a collection of essays, written under the pen name “an Ohio Farmer” and edited by the Ashbrook Center’s Executive Director Peter Schramm and “Claremont Review of Books” Senior Editor Christopher Flannery. Following in the ink of the Founders, this collection of short essays covers a period of nearly two years leading up to the 2012 presidential election.
The letters, which originally appeared online, address recent landmark events, including: the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA); the Dodd-Frank Act; the Budget and Debt Crises; and the National Labor Relations Board’s case against Boeing. The book carries serious intellectual weight; contributors include former Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute Fellow Stephen Hayward, Mackubin T. Owens of the U.S Naval War College, and Pepperdine University’s Gordon Lloyd among others.
For those individuals constantly tapped into the 24-hour news-stream, some of the discussions, like the analysis of the Arab Spring, might seem like a political decade old. After all, its 2013 and the final letter of the series is dated September 17th, 2012. Such events, however, provide material for discussing inherent principles of government and individual freedom. The Arab Spring, for instance, first leads to an examination of political tyranny and the difficulty of replacing it with good government, and concludes with a principled and rational discussion of “interventionist” foreign policy. Through case studies like this, which include a patchwork of political philosophy, history, and current events, the collection professes to build an intellectual foundation to strengthen the self-described “Tea Part” advocates.
While their perspective offers a defense of limited government, as the preface reminds the reader, these authors are not partisans, at least in the modern two-party sense. They are instead partisans of the constitutional self-government they regard as America’s gift to the world; they believe small government and the checks and balances and separation of powers of the American system advance human flourishing. The authors address several crucial aspects of introductory politics courses: the conflict between passion and reason, the consent of the governed, the principles of equality,and the limits on the national government inherent to the idea of federalism. Most importantly, the authors address the central question of human nature, reminding the reader that “we are, after all, ‘the people,’ and no more angelic than our elected representatives, and sometimes our democratic behavior does not reflect well on our human nature.” The discussion proceeds with such simplicity that even a reader with little or no formal education in politics will enjoy the book.
Maintaining both clarity and a conversational tone, the authors of “A Constitutional Conversation” do their part to assure that Lincoln’s dream of government “of the people, by the people, and for the people will not perish from this earth.”
scarr@hillsdale.edu