And further:
	" ... The only way whereby any one ... puts on the bonds of civil society,
	is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community, for their
	comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, is a secure
	enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are
	not of it ...
	For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made
	a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with the 
	power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the 
	majority ...
	And thus, every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under
	one government, puts himself under an obligation to every one of that society
	to submit to the determination of the majority ..." (7)

     Now, at first glance, this would seem to run in fundamental accord with the 'spirit' that animated the
American Revolution. It may, indeed, have been perceived so by the Founders. There might be questions
as to protecting the rights of minorities from a tyranny of a majority, but the appeal to natural law in
Locke should defeat that objection. The real problem posed here is in a distinction between this Lockean
'community' and the concept of 'Association' is a number of philosophical systems to be examined shortly.
It also entails the question of the definition of property to be protected.
     The central issue may speak to the reason that Jefferson in particular was apparently so fond of Locke,
and that is their mutual attachment to Physiocratic notions of property and wealth. It can be construed in
Locke that property and wealth are derived from the labor which is invested in their production, or more
accurately, in the labor committed to the alteration of resources which results in the value of what is
created. The dilemna is, of course, that this is a labor theory of value. 

     Contrast that with a theory of labor power and the issue is joined. While it would be difficult to
conclude from this a degree of anti-technology bias in Locke, one which does, however, mark Jefferson,
the kernel of that would appear to present itself. There also seems to be the inference in Locke that man is
entitled to the fruit of his labor, that he has a natural right not to be deprived of that. If, indeed, that
assessment is valid, the argument on Locke may run to something like Marxian theories of expropriation 
of wealth where that takes place. Where this runs aground is in the purpose and functioning of
community. On the labor theory of value, there is no basis for economic growth and development as the
prerequisite of increased levels of wealth generation. And without that, there is no foundation for
improved living standards, while the inevitable outcome of its absence runs to Malthus. This point will be
rejoined later in the discussion and this issue as to Lockean property is crucial for this examination. If
artificial labor and an American genius for technology are taken to be essential characteristics of the
American spirit or Geist, there is clearly a problem with the one vision of property in Locke. The point
may be less problematic, however, if we take the Declaration, for example, in toto, for it definitively
elaborates grievances which score British policy restricting American wealth creation even as it
paraphrases Locke's property as 'the pursuit of happiness.' The law, in Locke, was "to be designed for no
other end ultimately but the good of the people."( 8) After all, we gave up no right in subjecting ourselves
to government, either through taxation (by consent) or any other way. But this issue is crucial for
understanding the concept of community, at least among the Framers.

     We also find in Locke's "Letters Concerning Toleration," a treatment of the distinct natures of religion
and government such that it is "necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that
of religion, and to settle the just bounds that lie between one and the other." For Locke, the proper concern
of governance is protection of 'life, liberty, and property,' but it has nothing to lend to the salvation of
souls, taken to be the business of religion. In part here, his meaning rests upon the use of force by the civil
magistrate, something which is incapable of reaching to change men's mind or save their souls. (9)                                                                               

     Now, the argument that such force can not be effective in altering beliefs and that it would be
inappropriate given the sources of governmental power on the consent of the governed may be a broad
defense of freedom of expression and intellectual freedom. And yet, since man does not live by bread
alone and that the cultivation of economic development toward the improvement of human live may be
seen  to enhance the quality of life which is necessary to elevate man toward a fuller realization of his
potential and freer exercise of his reason and will. It is difficult to imagine Benjamin Franklin not viewing
this as the proper function of government. Hence, this freedom and necessity argument clearly entwines
the roles of government and religion in a special way. 

     The 'establishment clause' to the contrary notwithstanding, the business of government and religion
may be inseparable. That provision of the First Amendment is largely misconstrued, in any event,
certainly barring 'establishment,' but not restricting 'the free exercise thereof.' And for an examination of
our civil religion, the issue may be one of paramount importance. Furthermore, while force may be taken
to be an appropriate and necessary operation of governance, in many respects it runs counter to the notion
of limited government. The political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence ascribes to
government the protection of rights and not the control of people. In Locke, people may beg control, but
that is not the message of the Declaration. The space between those two conceptualizations of government
may be the realm of the civil religion resolving any seeming contradiction. Whatever the contradiction
which can be found between Locke and Rousseau, this may be a crucial area for consideration. In a very
real sense, the objective of the community being established by the Framers was one where a fairly
unfettered General Will could function. Thus, again, as in the instance of Hooker, the apparent philosophy
quandary by find reconciliation in the constitutional regime established. 
     During the first third of the 18th century in England, two publications, The Independent Whig and
Cato's Letters, were the primary instruments for the circulation of their ideas by John Trenchard and
Thomas Gordon. The contemporary Cato Institute would build upon that tradition, but John Adams wrote
that their writings which appeared in the colonies from 1724 on, had become 'fashionable reading' in the
early 1770's. Clinton Rossiter goes further:

	"No one can spend any time in the newspapers, library inventories, and pamphlets 
	of colonial America  without realizing that Cato's Letters rather than Locke's Civil 
	Government was the most popular, quotable, esteemed source of political ideas 
	in the colonial period."(10)

One of the principle means for restraining government set forth in Cato is one that we seem only to have
realized in 1995 that the interests of the governed and those who govern should be the same, requiring
that representatives live in accordance with any legislation they enact, but as they extend the right "to
enjoy the Fruit of his Labor, Art, and Industry" to what may be termed the multiplication of property for
the reward of society, such liberty rests on the fact that:

	"All men are born free; Liberty is the Gift which they receive from God; nor can they
	alienate the same by Consent, though possibly they can forfeit it by Crime ...

	The Right of the Magistrate arises only from the Right of private Men to defend themselves,
	to repel Injuries, and to punish those who commit them: That Right having conveyed by the 
	Society to their publick Representative, he can execute the same no further than the Benefit
	and Security of that Society requires that he should ..."(11)

     On the eve of the American Revolution, the thought of  both William Blackstone and Adam Smith
appeared, and it may be impossible to overestimate the role they played in subsequent events in America,
and if the former has become of less direct importance in the late 20th century, something which is
entirely regrettable, the same cannot be said of the later.  




     Blackstone's COMMENTARIES constituted not just the cornerstone of the legal training of such as
Marshall and Story, but, observes Russell Kirk:

	"Although Blackstone was not quite the Solon of America, probably no other 
	new nation-state has been so governed by a single legal authority from abroad.
	Until the middle of the nineteenth century, there were not a few American judges
	whose chief source of legal knowledge was a copy of Blackstone ..."(12)
	
And as steeped in common law as was Blackstone, its reason tempered by the knowledge of reason was
grounded in natural law:

	"This law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and dictated by God himself,
	is  of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe,
	and all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary
	to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority,
	mediately or immediately from this original." (13)

As will be examined shortly, this sense was crucial to Lincoln's vision of the constitutional order, but the
sense, as well, reverberates through American history from Thoreau to King. Positive law must stand in
accord with natural law, and law in contravention of it was an attempt to alter the nature of things and, as
such, was not good law. Hence, Plessy might be well deemed as invalid. But, so, too, might Roe.

     If natural liberty may be structured under some restraint with man's entrance into society and
government, the purpose of that framework was in essence the guarantee of the natural rights of man:


	"For the principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment
	of those absolute rights which were vested in them by the unmutable laws
	of nature; but which could not be preserved in peace without the mutual 
	assistance and intercourse which is gained by the institution ... of communities.
	Hence it follows that the first and primary end of human laws is to maintain ...
	those absolute rights of individuals ...
	The absolute rights of man ... are usually summed up in one great appellation,
	and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty consists
	properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without restraint or control,
	unless by the law of nature; being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of
	the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he embued him with the faculty
	of free will ...  (14)

     There is a good deal more to said later regarding Blackstone, principally due to his involvement in
contract law and related issues of business and government, but any effort to portray the social
construction of reality in the colonial world would be incomplete without a discussion of Adam Smith.
Although it is true that his WEALTH OF NATIONS was not published until the year of the Declaration,
there was considerable currency to the fundamental notions he presents and the book itself  had ample
opportunity for exposure by the time of the Second Founding in 1789. Undoubtedly the most prominent of
the 'Scotch philosophers,' Smith carries greater truck now than ever.

     It is not really so simple, though, in describing Adam Smith, to simply repeat the fashionable
identification -- even interchangability  -- with 'laissez faire' that is accorded him. Of course, now as then,
this is an absurd terminology in an absolute sense. Smith's arguments were not so much for no
government intervention in markets (though he did argue the logic), but for less and of a different variety.
That may not put him as much at odds with Colbert, Alexander Hamilton, or supply side as first
impressions might suggest. He certainly did not completely reject the possibility of positive governmental
action out of hand, even as he did project markets and the invisible hand.



     The problem with economic intervention is, of course, that it is for the 'alleged' benefit of society, and
the markets are overall a much better determinant of that than any group of individual bureaucrats could
possible be. To claim any differently is profoundly presumptuous. There are just too many variables which
cannot be known or measured, if quantifiable for analysis. And given the reasoning behind the division of
powers in government, such policies bear great difficulty and danger. But the severest disapproval in
Adam Smith is probably his critique of mercantilism, and in this, the conceptual break-through
concerning property and wealth that is problematic in Locke, for it is fundamental in Smith that wealth is
neither limited nor fixed, but is created. Indeed, his basic point is that market systems will do the most
efficient job of producing wealth. This severely limits the bounds of operation of any sovereign power:

	"The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty, in the attempting
	to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions,
	and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge 
	could ever be sufficient ..."(15)

In Smith's system of natural liberty, what duties the sovereign is to attend to are but three, protecting
society and its individuals from without, and from within, and "erecting and maintaining public works
and public institutions ..." For government to do otherwise was impertinent and presumptuous.

     What he describes is an underlying confluence between a peaceful self-interest and societal good. Each
person seeking his own advantage will be motivated to provide what is most advantageous to society:




	"The produce of industry is what it adds to the subject or material upon which
	it is employed. In proportion as the value of this produce is great or small, so will
	likewise be the profits of the employer. But it is only for the sake of profit that any
	man employs a capital in the support of industry; and he will always, therefore, 
	endeavor to employ it in the support of that industry of which the produce is
	likely to be of the greatest value, or to exchange for the greatest quantity either of
	money or other goods."(16)

     Although Smith's invisible hand did engender the creation of wealth, and this an important
breakthrough, there does seem to be a flaw. In concluding that the wealth of a country is the aggregate of
that produced within it, he seems to neglect the possibility of a rising level of productivity with
technological advance, which would render the total resultant wealth greater than what went into
producing it, and hence, the value of the property output would exceed the value of units of input.
(Economists today suffer from similar shortsightedness in a dogged persistence of  adherence to the
doctrine of diminishing returns).

     Despite what might be conceived as intonations of a necessary role for governance in controlling some
people and in protecting society thereby, this is effectively a fairly elevated vision of man. The pursuit of
self interest which others might have condemned as stigmatizing man is here being raised almost to the
level of sacramental value. In pursuing it, the world prospers! Indeed, the maximization of social surplus
may not merely best, but only be achieved through the relatively unfettered functioning of the market
system.

     But that leaves some number of questions open for discussion. At least as regards the role the
Protestant Reformation played in this scheme of developments, there must be some queries as to the
nature of man. Where, for example, is the depravity of man in that discussion and where does the matter
of free will and determinism fit within these parameters? To the extent that the Reformation is argued to
have been a factor in the evolution of the British and American spirit's heritage as just outlined, how is
that compatible with the frequent references made to the power of will and reason, natural right and the
ascension of man? Several sources can be drawn on in the attempt to resolve this dilemna. Robert Oden
has commented extensively on just this concern, and the writings of Sacvan Berkovitz and Max Weber
provide considerable relevant discussion. And Robert Bellah, generally credited with firmly establishing 
the study of our civil religion, also provides some insight, even where his analyses are given a critical
reading.                                                                               

     This is a crucial area of exploration, for there appear to be fundamental antinomies emergent here
between some of the tendencies, at least, that culminated through the English heritage just examined, the
American colonial experience, the American system of governance structured, the American System of
political economy and manufactures, and the American genius for technology on the one hand, and at
least some basic elements of what is taken to represent the philosophical system of Protestantism by many,
and that is a bit disconcerting.

     Max Weber, in his famous work on the relationship, does see sharp antinomies between Luther and
capitalism (17), except that the vocation concept may circumvent the problem considerably. But in respect
to Calvin, the superficial conflict between his anti-worldly and capitalism's worldly foci undoubtedly is
one of the key points of the study.(18)


     Christopher Morley's expression that this country would have been better off if instead of the Puritans
landing on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock had landed on them may be flawed in its locating the wrong
group there -- Pilgrims were hardly Puritans -- but it does disclose something of Robert Oden's view of the
Puritan psyche. A major thrust of Oden's discussion of the Reformation separates it along basically three
major lines, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Calvinism/Puritanism. On the other hand, the chain of events
we lump together in this category may have been simultaneously both more than they seem and less. It
often appears that it had more to do with developing nationalism than it did religious philosophy or
theology. The later may have been effective outgrowth, if not rationalization for, the former. If there is any
validity to such an assessment, it puts the entire period in a different light, and the rationalization may
have been reflection in each instance of culture diversities unique to their societies. The 'break-up' of the
western church may have had more to do with politics than anything else. The English schism certainly
had some roots in the same fray which produced the Armada,  Spain's predominance  and its close ties to
the Papacy. A similar circumstance may have militated the German princes in their struggle with Rome.
The direction of the causality may not be as obvious as it is often portrayed. And to whatever extent that
may have been the case, the religiousity structured out of the direction of social and political evolution in
England may account for the path it proceeded along there. If a roughly similar argument may mark the
events in Germany, it may also have been the case for America and the constitution of its religiousity. We
may have had effectively our own 'Reformation' with its own unique 'religion.' But that is not the
contention of Oden, or Berkovitz or Weber.

     Oden, in particular, traces developments along theological grounds. For Luther, the issue was
primarily salvation. Luther became concerned over the facilitude of the Roman Catholic sacramental
system. This, for him, could not be found in the Bible, and, in fact, on Paul, salvation was grounded in
faith alone. For Luther, works, which were 'smells and bells,' participating in the sacramental system -- a
more or less 'magical' manipulation of God -- were rejected in favor of faith. Such activity meant, for him,
humanity seeking to work its own salvation, and that possibility he rejected.

     John Calvin describes his 'conversion' as a breaking away from the superstitions of the Papacy. Initially
turned away from an attempt to mold Geneva in the likeness of his vision, within two years he was
accorded that opportunity. Calvin identified the kinds of actions he found himself having to take in that
position, ostensibly in the effort of bringing God's kingdom to earth:


	" ... actions against a widow who prayed a Latin prayer, against a man for having
	his fortune told by gypsies, against a goldsmith for making a chalice. I was forced
	to take action against a woman of seventy who was about to marry a man of 
	twenty-five, against a barber for shaving a priest, against one who was heard
	to declare that the pope was a good man, against one for making a bodily noise
	during a sermon, and against others for criticizing Geneva by singing a song 
	defamatory against John Calvin ... " (19 )



     Oden identifies three general themes of the effort to reform Christianity, primarily on the actions of
Luther and Calvin:

	1) the majesty of God -- "God was a mighty, fearsome deity who could not be
	 	controlled by humans. The providence of God was totally his. Any
		attempt to affect that providence was sinful and wrong.
	2) the depravity of humanity -- "as high and as free as is God, so low and unfree
		is humanity." Human beings can do nothing on their own and are infected
		with Original Sin. Luther defined a saint as one aware or the egotism of his
		every motive. Calvin defined man as "a five foot worm," and children as
		"snakes."
	3) that everyone has a human calling -- somewhat paradoxically since God's freedom
		is his own and we are so depraved, can there be anything we can do? But,.
		though it cannot impact one's salvation, God has a calling for everyone. 
		Discovering it does not constitute earning one's own salvation, but does
		provide a good sign that a person may be one of the elect. Max Weber
		called this frugality, abstinence, and sacrifice in  Protestantism, "this world
		aestethism."



He [Oden] depicts the English Puritans as successors of the earlier Protestants of central Europe,
especially Calvin, seeking to further 'purify' the Protestant Reformation by seeking change in the Anglican
Church, which was little more than popism without a pope. They replicated and carried further these three
themes. They were not only iconoclasts, but delighted in work on Holy Days as a sign of their salvation.
The entire sacramental system was to be rejected.

     It is Oden's contention that what is found in America in the late 18th century was a dramatically
Puritan society where 85% of the Europeans in the colonies were Reformed Puritans. Sidney Olstram,
American church historian, holds that is was "the most thoroughly Protestant and Reformed Puritan
commonwealth the world had ever known and probably would ever know." The foundations of the
American psyche were therefore formed by Puritanism, and this has effects on us in fundamental ways
whatever our perceptions of ties, or lack of them, to the Protestant Reformation. Oden identifies a number
of implications of this, drawing on Berkovitch's THE PURITAN ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN SELF.


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