While Green has problems with all that, seeing a dilemna Carey cannot resolve, there is no
contradiction whatsoever. There is the problem of anomie which Liebniz explains, but that is precisely the
point. Carey specifically addresses the issue, arguing that man could sabotage the designs of the universe,
God, and progress through the selfish pursuit of self-interest  'centralization' over association and
concentration. He also argues that such controversion was the design of the enemies of civilization
through the British System. Not unlike today, the debate over free will and determinism was a critical
intellectual issue of the day. For Carey, who stood opposed to determinism, man was the potential free
master of his own destiny. That democratic faith through association was the framework by which the
republican state would be utilized in the task of fostering a better society. He made this case clearly in a
review of Tocqueville (150).  The problem Green and others have with Carey's 'molecules,' 'gravitation,'
and the like (151) arises simply because he apparently does not understand. This is not at all a
mechanistic interpretation on the part of Carey. And it is in this entire light of free-will association that
Carey attacks Mill, Ricardo, Malthus, and the like. They were glaring exemplars of the abuse and misuse
of deduction. Their efforts, in terms of the British System, were directed at reducing the entire world into
slavery through, at least in part, the destruction of community. It is interesting that as Carey articulates his
entire system of human progress, he often does so through a recharacterization of Defoe's Robinson
Crusoe. This is perhaps the most explicit in THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE.  What he
is doing through this analogy, of course, is juxtaposing the community economies of the British and
American systems.

     Arnold Green suggests that Carey's concept of progress is "more spiral than Spencerian linearity."
(152) It would have to be. After all, that appears to clearly be the tradition he is coming from. The same
element pervades a host of exemplars from Plato to Liebniz, Kepler, Dante, and even Poe (in EUREKA he
specifically elucidates the concept as such  -- and, "I was a young conehead once, myself").

     What rings through everywhere in Henry Carey is a definition of political economy as human effort to
improve the human condition through "enlightened self-interest." His approach of public energy to
promote capitalism to enhance equality and liberate humanity through capital expansion may seem rather
unique against the backdrop of contemporary political analysis. It should not seem so, but it is a perhaps
'new' view of American capitalism worthy of considerable investigation (or is it today known as supply-
side?)  That it so profoundly relates to the tradition which spawned the nation, the Constitutional regime,
the Republic, and the 'Founders,' and that it serves as a conjunction between that period and the later
timeframe of Lincoln (as argued here, it actually transcends even that, reaching even into the present era),
even as it coheres so tightly with the structural aspects of the civil religious order, marks it with
considerable importance for this consideration, identifying the elan vitale of our community and society.




XV. THE GENEALOGY OF AMERICAN CIVIL RELIGION

     Unlike the case in America, the British constitutional tradition was an amorphous, always changing
amalgam. While it is called unwritten, parts of it were indeed in print, but it was an aggregate rather than
a collective entity. A small handful of ancient, written guarantees were complemented or addended by the
acts of Parliament, the case law of judicial statement, the custom of tradition, and the rules and procedures
of the Parliament, which were in actuality a part and parcel of tradition. A number of conceptualizations
permeated this 'constitution.' This force of custom, of antiquity,  was joined by the idea of trusteeship, that
MP's sat for the realm, the whole of the Commonwealth, and not for any particular individual
constituencies. Any alternative form of representation would be viewed as divisive selfish fragmentation
contrary to the public good and anti-constitutional. Power was seen as flowing from the top down with the
Crown, King and Parliament, the great legitimizer of sovereign power. There could be no exercise of
power without this sanction. Any rights were granted thusly, and held by subjects at their discretion.
Government in such a scheme was to be limited by the rule of law, and this consideration of sanctity of
rules involved a vision of liberty thus granted as absolute unless Parliament acted to the contrary. While
this vision was primarily oriented to procedural rights and liberties, government, in any event, was not to
be arbitrary toward those rights and there was a notion of remedy at law were there transgressions. Of
course, such remedy was quite limited especially as one proceeded down the social ladder, but there was
also an all-encompassing sense that such problems would be mitigated by the mixed character of the
constitution.

     The three zones of power, the Crown which tended to despotism but represented stability and
continuity, the Aristocracy which tended to oligarchy and tyranny but also wisdom, and the Commons
sensitive to liberty but threatening a sort of democratic anarchy in which liberty became license, all served
to function as a sort of system of separation of powers with inherent checks and balances one against the
others -- a sort of balance of power among estates, each of which if the system were thrown our of balance
by undue ascendancy, because power corrupts, would lead to a decline and decay of the constitutional
order. Against that backdrop, there was a developing pressure of change as notions of natural law and
rights increasingly came into focus. And this was all in the context of a basic belief that the fastest way to
limit liberty was to write it down (and thus limit it).

     Informed by that mentality, Blackstone laboriously constructed his COMMENTARIES. Ultimately,
what he was doing in a very real sense was organizing and putting in print that constitution, but it was
being done by government, but as a tool of legal education and practice. Perhaps such a logical,
comprehensive blueprint would serve to delineate liberty and not limit it in the writing. Admittedly, this
was an advocacy of the status quo, but it might well be viewed as a rationalization of the British
constitutional structure; his seemingly strained defense of the Crown might be seen as expediency,
Machiavellian or pragmatic advocacy toward that end. 

     To whatever extent what Blackstone was describing adhered or not to the myriad of ideas circulating in
the American colonies on any particular level, there seems to be a certain compatibility with a prominent
American notion that the decay of the Constitution which had occurred might be checked, and the
constitutional system thus resurrected and preserved in such an effort. The colonies became obsessed with
constitution writing. That by itself may well account for the popular currency which the
COMMENTARIES seem to have enjoyed in America. There were, of course, some elements in Blackstone
that became increasingly incompatible and problematic to American notions. While he held a certain faith
in Parliament, there seems to be less in kings (which obviously developed far beyond that in colonial
minds), but he had little or none in democracy. A perfect democracy was to him perfect anarchy. Of
course, however republican the Americans were to become,  they would probably empathize with him on
that score. There was also an idea of nonvolitional citizenship which, as 1776 approached, the colonists
obviously strayed away from. The concept of virtual representation would trouble them, too.

     Blackstone also held the American 'plantations' to be distinct dominions, subject to the control of
Parliament, but not bound to its laws unless specifically named. Where he exhibits a sort of ambivalence
toward them, they were property and quite viewed as in a subordinate status. That may have at the same
time been quite acceptable and yet problematic for the colonists.

     The COMMENTARIES subscribe to a characterization of human kind that ran quite counter to that
held by at least many of the colonials. Man was perceived by him as fallen, not good; even with a
tendency toward evil. Man was best served by submission -- a submission to authority that is the basis of
freedom. His state of nature would seem to be a most unlikeable place. Once man gave up rights to and for
the sovereign, he could not get them back except at his discretion. That was the formula for order. And
the compact was seen as incontrovertible. There is a real tension between natural law and the sovereign.
Locke may not have agreed. The contract could be changed, though he too, while not the defender of
existing structure, was uncomfortable with the idea of revolution. To Locke, man may not have been
inherently evil, but he was bound by selfish self-interest motives and a prime function of government was
to control man bound by such tendencies.

     There was a somewhat different notion that came to prevail in America. The political philosophy of the
Declaration held that men had natural and immutable rights, that governmental authority flowed from the 
people, that the people not only could, but had a duty where transgression was prolonged to change the
compact, and that the function of government was to secure the rights of the people so they could be about
the process of self-development and even self-perfection -- a Renaissance notion of man that flowed into
the American mind from the tradition of Pico, Ficino, and Milton, Sydney, et al. While Blackstone seems
to have allowed that man would eventually get better in the distant future, and Locke perhaps assumed 
even a little more, the idea of progress in the American mind was qualitatively at a different substantive
level on the score.

     To Blackstone, law was set down by a superior. The pursuit of happiness was the foundation of ethics
or natural law, and such was a part of the law of nature -- was the famous enumeration of rights in the
Declaration a combining of phrases (and perhaps thusly of ideas) from Locke and Blackstone? Active
destructive of such pursuit was forbidden by the law of nature. Valid law derived from this and human law
was not valid if contrary to it. Reason was to discover what the law of nature directs for human
circumstances, but reason was corrupt and understanding full of ignorance and error. There was
consequently divine or revealed law that was more authoritative than natural law and no human law could
be suffered that contradicted either. At points, man was left at liberty, but for the benefit of society, he
must be restrained within limits. It was here that human laws had their greatest force and efficacy. They
had to therefore be declaratory and subordinate of the former. Matters which were indifferent in regard to
it were to the legislature to interpose. While man in the state of nature without connection with others
would need no other law, man could not live alone, nor could he be united in one society. He must
therefore divide into separate states, equal and independent, but in mutual intercourse. The law of nations
arose to regulate this, and since none would accept others as superior here, it must depend upon a natural
law of mutual accord.

     Municipal law was the rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power of the state commanding
right and prohibiting wrong. It was a rule permanent, uniform, and universal. Obedience to law depended
upon the maker's will, not on the subject's approbation. It was an injunction on the willing and unwilling
alike, and regards man as bound to duties to neighbors arising out of enjoyment of the benefits of common
union. It was a rule prescribed by tradition and practice notified in a public manner. Though it could not
be ex post facto or be cruel and unjust, it was the subject's duty and business to know or no law could be
effectual. Such impunity could elude all. It was the rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power
in a state. The legislature was the greatest act of superiority of one being over others.

     The only true and natural foundation of society was the wants and fears of individuals. Society was
formed to protect these, not out of a social contract in a state of nature. And it was based on the individual
submitting to law for protection. Government resulted to keep order in society. The superior needed to
command those bound to obey or the state of nature would continue. Government ought to be vested in
those whom God had styled with wisdom, goodness, and property. Three forms of government had been
shown in history in which sovereignty was vested. Democracy possessed goodness but may be contrived
and weak. Aristocracy possessed wisdom but was less honest. The monarchy was the most powerful and
thus orderly, but tended to oppression.  The best government balanced these in a system of checks and
balances, as in England. Weakening one to others would undo the constitution and effect anarchy.
Wherever supreme authority rested, it was the right of that duty to make law, to prescribe the rules for
social action. The several wills did not permit natural union. They had to be tempered into a political
union where all submit private wills to the will of one supreme authority of law, and the supreme power
had the right and duty to set law that was based on right and wrong. Thus Blackstone prescribed and
transcribed the British Constitution. But lastly, as a student of imperial collapse, there would be an
additional element in Blackstone which would be of importance to the colonial mind. The victims of such
collapse, they would perceive themselves as those chosen to take up the mantle to preserve the
Constitution, and to set it down toward that end.


     When Gouvernor Morris wrote the Preamble and altered the opening lines to leave out the states and
emphasize the people, he was drawing one of the fundamental distinctions between the general
government structured under the Articles and that formed by the Constitution. Much is made of the
opening clause of the document especially in the period of bicentennial commemoration. While a degree
of this may be attributable as romanticist, it is not altogether merely that. The Constitution would create a
Republic where the Articles had united the several newly independent republics in a loose confederation. 
Despite the apparent fascination of Gordon Wood with the Articles period which almost seems to view the
Constitution as a near counter-revolution in which the machinery of government was put in place of the
dead organism that had grown out of the Revolution, it might be more appropriate to hold the Constitution
as rather a continuation of that Revolution; that, indeed, it was a lawful outgrowth of it, that it breathed a
new life into the nation.

     When the Declaration was penned, the disparity among the colonies was hardly paramount. As has
been suggested, it was 'one people' which was dissolving the political bands. The American colonists were
together to assume the station entitled them. It may be argued that the reference to all men having been
created equal was an assertion of the equality of this set of people with all other nations and especially that
of the British nation, possessed of all the subsequent rights and privileges which attend. The tone of unity
permeates the document from its claim to be the "Unanimous declaration," throughout, right down to the
mutual pledge with which it concludes. While there are, to be sure, faint references to their severalty, it is
far from primary or pronounced -- that is exactly the point. They were, more importantly, "United
Colonies." The signers were "the Representatives of the united States of America" acting "by Authority of
the good People of these Colonies ..." If the Articles gave expression to unvarnished revolutionary
republican thought, so, too, did the new Constitution even more so, being even more an expression of the
Whig science of politics which is as informed by political economy as it is anything else. That is not to
render the Articles as merely a failed constitution, but this "Period of First Establishment" was a first
attempt at governance peppered with some problematic expressions and reflecting some troublesome
assumptions. Formed as a General government and not a Federal one, it may have been the best that could
be structured in the midst of the crisis that was at hand. In fact, it may serve us better to consider it really
a provisional government.  If there was a shared conviction that the republic (or republics) they were
organizing would have to be small -- that small was good and big was bad -- such notions were reflective
of the political realities of their situation. This mentality echoes, or rather reeks, of the Jeffersonian and
Physiocratic conception of political economy (which looks at economies of scale not as the prerequisite of
a republic but as evil). If they feared factionalism or parties as disruptive of agreement, the fact that they
viewed themselves as neighborhoods each of which possessed an integrity of its own, such was itself a
factionalism which would prevent the Articles from being a success. If such factionalism was a disease
which would lead to the loss of civic virtue, their vision of small semi-autonomous republics jealously
guarding their rights was divisive of the whole. The Republic would need but was a dissolving force on
that cement of society.                                                             

     If they would perhaps preserve the idea of kingship without a king, the Articles did so only in each
community or colony (and not even really there if one accepts Wood) except to the extent that the loose
confederation's legislature was a reflection of the greater notion of the Crown which encompassed the
Parliament in the British Constitution. If their formation was something like the Iroquois Confederation,
with only as much cement as absolutely necessary, made of confederates which were free to withdraw,
their construction of autonomous republics might have done well to have considered how the Hanseatic
League proved to have been but a precursor of more centralized nation-states which evolved. The General
government as established looked remarkably British with some important subtractions. There was a
'gigantic' Congress with enumerated tasks beyond which they could not go -- what was missing was
retained by the states. The locus of sovereignty was the state legislatures and not the people, either
severally or certainly collectively. In each colony, these legislatures were supposed to be representative of
the will of the people, and only to that extent reminiscent of Parliament.

     Except for the First Federal Court of Admiralty and the occasional limited setting of Congress as a
court, there were no General government courts, the state judiciaries assumed to be adequate. There was a
PM type executive with really no power to speak of. A mere moderator of Congress, he constantly had to
report to Congress. If a fear of king/despot led to this, they made him but an officer of protocol and little
more. But even such as this official was, the position was one of some contention nonetheless. The several
such presidents (many of whom served for less than one year) seem to have alternated from both northern
to southern holders and large and small states in their selection. The various department heads were
bound tightly to that body, and there was no separation of powers in the government. 

     The political atrophy which was resultant under the Articles is a consequence of other attributes as
well that are usually identified in history texts as 'defects' in the Articles. Amendment required a real
consensus -- there had to be unanimity. Whether this was done due to jealously or fear of tyranny or some
ill-conceived notion that republicans do not coerce, matters but little to the outcome. Even legislation
required nine of the thirteen votes to pass, with each state, whatever its population, having but one vote,
though any number of delegates could be sent to case the single vote. The same large/small, slave/free
divisions kept important measures from enactment as did the general attitude of jealous guardianship.
This, too, may be demonstrative of the concept of volunteerism. The Congress had no standing
committees to speak of, apparently based on the idea that in having many, none would become too
powerful. This view of committees (as so much else) as a fertile field of tyranny led to an extremely
inefficient government, but by design (a design which was in large measure carried over to the
Constitution, under which stalemate was intended as a block against governmental expansiveness -- which
there too led to a lack of efficiently which would limit government also by its inefficiency of operation
which would limit its use). The delegates could make war (hypothetically) but had no power to actually
raise an army or force states to lend either troops or revenue. This greatly complicated Washington's war
effort. They could make treaties but had no power to enforce them on the states which were free to make
their own agreements. 


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