The degree to which Samuel Bryan
believed that simplicity was an absolutely essentially element of any
government intended to remain apart from despotism, tyranny, and corruption –
and the extent to which he was convinced that this need for simplicity was
grounded upon a very practical course of reasoning – was made exceptionally
clear in paragraphs seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen of Centinel I, all of
which sought to address the evident inadequacy of the “extended republic” which
the advocates of a more centralized national government tacitly endorsed. The
issue at hand was essentially one of size. In addition to taking issue with
certain aspects of the structure of government proposed by the United States
Constitution, it seemed, Bryan was also highly suspicious of the scale of the
undertaking and its effect upon the end result. How could any government, he
seemed inclined to ask, intended to exert its authority over the United States
of America in such granular areas as taxation, commerce, monetary policy, and
criminal justice possibly do so in a manner that didn’t prejudice the needs of
certain communities over those of others? Notwithstanding the immense diversity
of interests which the various states collectively represented – from
plantation agriculture, to mining, to industry, shipping, shipbuilding, and
banking – the tremendous physical distances between America’s major population
centers, state capitals, and the national capital – at that point, in October
of 1787, New York City – presented a host of seemingly insurmountable
logistical challenges which Bryan appeared unconvinced that the proposed
constitution had adequately addressed. How, in attempting to make law for –
and, perhaps more pressingly, lay taxes upon – an otherwise fairly loose
agglomeration of communities whose daily lived experiences and practical
concerns were not particularly alike, could any government forced to operate at
often very significant distances from its constituents possibly create and
implement policies that adequately served their needs?
In attempting to answer this question,
Bryan delved for perhaps the only time across the length of Centinel I into the
realm of political theory. As it happened, the ability of a large swath of
territory to be successfully governed as a republic had been discussed to
significant effect by no less august a personage in the realm of Western
philosophy than that estimable architect of the theory of separation of powers
in government, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
(1689-1755). In his highly influential tract, The Spirit of the Laws (1748) – discussed here previously on more
than one occasion – Montesquieu made specific mention, within the context of a
larger discussion about the unique qualities of various kinds of governments,
of what he believed to be the ideal relationship between the republican form of
administration and the physical dimensions of the region to be administered. A
stable republic on a large scale was essentially impossible, the great philosophe affirmed, because the
mechanism upon which the republican model depends in order to function – i.e.
the distillation and implementation of public opinion – worked best in
conditions that favored a clear consensus of thought and action. “In a large
republic,” he thereby asserted,
The public
good is sacrificed to a thousand views; it is subordinate to exceptions; and
depends on accidents. In a small one, the interest of the public is easier
perceived, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen;
abuses have a less extent, and of course are less protected.
The phenomenon
which Montesquieu had evidently observed was that it tends to be harder to form
an actionable consensus as the number and diversity of opinions involved increases.
A group of five people, for example, can almost certainly decide where they’re
going to have lunch much more quickly and easily than a group of fifty, or five
hundred, or five thousand. As this tendency applied to the business of republican
government, it had evidently struck the author of The Spirit of the Laws that the greater the number of people
directly involved in seeking out and pursuing the public good, the less likely
it became that the public good would ever actually be served. Though Montesquieu
did not provide a detailed explanation as to how and why this would be the
case, a moment’s thought would seem to affirm the essential logic of his
contention.
Consider, to that end, the topic of
trade. In a small republic whose economy is completely and uniformly dominated
by agriculture, policy discussions would almost certainly be ruled by the
underlying consensus that securing access to viable export markets for the
produce of the nation must be among the first priorities of government. Doubtless
there would be some objection to this among whatever urban artisans or
manufacturers reside within the republic in question. Those seeking to
establish a local market for their goods must needs oppose the freedom of trade
– and the accompanying lack of economic protections – sought by their
agriculturalist neighbors. But the overriding lack of economic diversity
essentially guaranteed by the small size of the relevant polity would more or
less ensure that such complaints never rise to the level of threatening the
aforementioned political consensus. If that same republic were to grow,
however, by steadily encompassing territories whose climate, natural resources,
or geo-physical situation inclined them towards different kinds of industries
than were theretofore possible under the flag of their newfound government, the
result must inevitably be the splintering of public opinion and the breakdown
of the accustomed consensus. Now possessed of a substantial mining sector, say,
as well as an even larger manufacturing sector, it could no longer be taken as
a given that the various individuals chosen to sit in the national assembly of
the republic could and would arrive at a speedy and effective definition of the
public good. With agriculture now possessing a much decreased economic
significance, and mining and manufacturing competing for the position of rising
industrial concern, compromise becomes essential for any progress to be made at
all. While this is not in itself a crippling condition, the end result would
almost certainly be as Montesquieu described it. The public good, once quite
narrowly defined and easily implemented, becomes “subordinate to exceptions,”
takes on a vaguer and more generic character, and no longer serves to benefit
quite as deeply as it once did.
Samuel Bryan’s description of
essentially this same phenomenon in the aforementioned passages of Centinel I
are what arguably attest to his familiarity with its terms. Indeed, he affirmed
explicitly in paragraph seventeen that,
It is the opinion
of the greatest writers, that a very extensive country cannot be governed on
democratical principles, on any other plan, than a confederation of a number of
smaller republics, possessing all the powers of internal government, but united
in the management of their foreign and general affairs.
While this is not
Montesquieu exactly, the influence of that earlier writer’s ideas upon the
general contours of Bryan’s expressed opinion would seem clear enough. This
becomes yet more obvious when one considers his further comment in paragraph
nineteen of Centinel I that,
If one
general government could be instituted and maintained on principles of freedom,
it would not be so competent to attend to the various local concerns and wants,
of every particular district, as well as the peculiar governments, who are
nearer the scene, and possessed of superior means of information [.]
Granted, Bryan and
Montesquieu did appear to come at the same issue from slightly different angles. Montesquieu believed that the inability of republican government to function
adequately on a large scale stemmed from the difficulty that must ever arise
from distilling many and diverse opinions into useful policy. The greater the
number of views that must be taken into account, he asserted, the harder it
becomes to locate and act on the public good. Bryan, by comparison, seemed to
be concerned more with the physical ungainliness of a large republic than its
tendency to govern in terms of poorly-defined generalities.
Speaking specifically of the United
States of America as it existed in 1787 – a union of thirteen states stretching
some fifteen hundred miles north to south – Samuel Bryan avowed that whatever
government could possibly administer the whole of its extensive territory
without succumbing to despotism would inevitably struggle to do so in a
particularly effective manner. “The various local concerns and wants, of every
particular district” would surely be beyond the abilities of a general
government to acknowledge, let alone attend to, rendering whatever directives
said government ultimately attempted to pursue of limited use to the general
population. Indeed, limited knowledge of the specific practices of diverse and
distant regions might even produce policies which benefit the bare majority of
the American people while harming a still sizable minority of the same. Local
governments, Bryan asserted, “who are nearer the scene, and possessed of
superior means of information” are preferable for exactly this reason. Capable
of comprehending the needs and concerns of the communities under their auspices
far more accurately than an authority located some distance away and burdened
with a much wider scope of responsibility, such small, limited governments were
likewise bound to be more attentive to the needs of their constituents and more
adept at responding in an effective and timely manner.
Notwithstanding this evident
difference in focus, Bryan most definitely agreed with Montesquieu’s basic
contention that the larger a republic grew physically, the less competent it
became at serving the needs of its citizens. Granted, this was a broadly
theoretical contention. As the examples put forward in the relevant passage of The Spirit of the Laws attest, there
weren’t many historical examples of republican government on any scale to draw
upon whilst arguing for or against the supposed benefits and flaws of that
selfsame model. Montesquieu made explicit mention of one of them – that of the
ancient Greek city-state republics – by way of affirming that the limited
republic was uniquely possessed of political stability. “It was the spirit of
the Greek republics [,]” he accordingly declared, “To be as contented with
their territories, as with their laws […] All was lost upon the starting up of
monarchy, a government whose spirit is more turned to increase and advancement.”
Ambition, it seemed, was the great corrupting vice of republicanism, for it
must ever have led to conquest, expansion, diffusion, and weakness. A small
republic was strong, Montesquieu was keen to point out, because its government
possessed the confidence of the greatest number of its inhabitants. And a large
republic was weak because the confidence of its people became so difficult to
define as to render government either ineffective or – more worryingly – a
thing apart.
The other primary example of
historical republicanism which Montesquieu and Bryan alike could have drawn
upon – but which neither The Spirit of
the Laws or Centinel I did with much effect – would seem to speak to exactly
this latter tendency. The Roman Republic, though for many Enlightenment
thinkers a beacon of virtuous and balanced self-government, also rather
paradoxically stands as one of the foremost examples of how susceptible
republicanism can be to political corruption and institutional atrophy.
Notwithstanding the exceptionally rigorous limitations placed upon the various
political officials who served Rome – term limits, frequent elections, age
qualifications, etc. – the profusion of assemblies responsible for various
aspects of public administration, and the checks and balances put in place
amongst the multifarious organs of government, the Roman Republic still
eventually succumbed to its own worst aspects. Lust for territory led to
expansion, which in turn brought about a diffusion of political authority, the
empowerment of ambitious military figures, the erosion of political norms, and
the triumph of demagoguery, populism, and tyranny. From a city-state interested
in little more than protecting its own sovereignty and seeing to the needs of
its inhabitants, Rome was transformed over the course of four centuries and
innumerable wars into an extensive empire whose population, military, and
government either tended to work at cross purposes or possessed very different
priorities.
The application
of this regrettable outcome to the circumstances of late 18th
century America would seem obvious enough. If one of the only reasonably
successful republics ever to exist was eventually transformed into a despotic
empire as a direct result of its tendency towards territorial expansion,
perhaps it was wise to think very carefully about any project which seemed to
have the same object in mind. The United States Constitution, of course, did
not describe a polity which much resembled ancient Rome, institutionally or
structurally. But the republic it did frame embraced a scale and centralization
of authority that was to some extent imperial in nature, and this in itself
entailed certain fundamental risks. While the United States of America
certainly enjoyed the benefit of strong sub-national governments – in the form
of the states – which could stand in opposition to the federal government if or
when it appeared to exceed its stated mandate, the power possessed by the
latter was still substantial, and the distance between the seat of national
power and the “provinces” was at times quite large. Bearing this in mind, what
was there to prevent the United States government from acting against the
interests of a state – or states – located at the far edge of its nominal
authority? Being responsible for such a vast and diverse swath of territory,
why should this same government not simply ignore all but the most basic needs
of the communities under its auspices? Montesquieu had predicted an answer in
the negative – i.e. “The public good is sacrificed to a thousand views” – and
even a cursory glance at the extant history of republican government would arguably
have affirmed the wisdom of his case.
But most of this
was, again, theoretical, and perhaps too theoretical for the liking of Samuel
Bryan. As the text of Centinel I seems otherwise to demonstrate, the son of
George Bryan was possessed of an eminently pragmatic turn of mind. Whereas, for
example, certain of his contemporaries claimed that smaller governments were
preferable to larger ones because the former did not threaten so much as the
latter to encroach upon the liberties of the individual, Bryan – without
necessarily disagreeing with this contention – avowed that simple governments
were preferable because people were more likely to adequately scrutinize
something they could actually understand. Just so, the aforementioned argument
which Bryan offered in Centinel I against the creation of a centralized
national government in the United States of America was accompanied by a
decidedly practical rationale. “Do we not already see,” he thus avowed,
That the
inhabitants in a number of larger states, who are remote from the seat of
government, are loudly complaining of the inconveniences and disadvantages they
are subjected to on this account, and that, to enjoy the comforts of local
government, they are separating into smaller divisions.
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