Thus far the elements of Thomas
Jefferson’s draft constitution for Virginia that have been herein examined – in
terms of their continuity with existing practice, their lack thereof, or their
origins in classical antiquity – have been discussed mainly by way of the
larger context of the widespread constitution writing that occurred across the
newly-independent United States in the late 1770s. This has hopefully been a
helpful approach. Jefferson was, after all, but one member of a sizeable
political and intellectual community. Attempting to understand his actions and
his choices is thus potentially facilitated by delving into the activities and
motivations of his peers and the manner in which they reacted as a group to the
political and social trends and events that they collectively encountered. That
being said, there were naturally certain ideas, certain concepts, or certain
principles that Jefferson held in isolation from his contemporaries among the
Founding Generation. He has, after all, long been heralded as a radical, even
among a cohort of men and women who saw fit to overthrow the only political
order they had ever known and erect a new and untested framework in its place.
Not every conviction that Jefferson held was all that common among the
Founders, and thus there were bound to be certain elements of his draft
constitution for Virginia that lay somewhere outside of his peers’ consensus as
to the proper form a republican government should take. These elements take
many and varied forms, but they each communicate something important about the
ideal society that Jefferson envisioned and attempted to codify in 1776.
Certain of them are admittedly
harder to account for than others. Some of what Jefferson proposed in his draft
constitution was novel in 1776, but has since gone on to become de rigueur in the modern United States.
America, for instance, is not a monarchy. This fact – stunningly obvious on the
face of things – potentially masks the importance of some of the choices
Jefferson and his compatriots made in drafting constitutions for their home
states, and has the potential to make the transition from a collection of
British colonies to an independent republic appear almost inevitable. In point
of fact, it wasn't. By challenging the established political order that had
underpinned and sustained the existence of the British North American colonies
for well over a century, the Founders were making a metaphorical leap in the
dark. Their success was far from certain, and the final form that their various
ad-hoc revolutionary governments might have taken was similarly ambiguous. In
setting out a codified and highly structured government for Virginia during
this period of supreme uncertainty – and possibility – Jefferson made several
very important decisions that gave tangible form to his grievances with
America’s past and his hopes for its future.
The monarchy – mentioned above –
was a key part of this vision. In the preamble to his draft constitution for
Virginia, Jefferson made it exceedingly clear that his home state would no
longer recognize the authority of the reigning British monarch (George III) or
any of his descendants or successors. “Be it therefore enacted by the authority
of the people,” he declared,
That the
said, George Guelf be, and he hereby is deposed from the kingly office within
this government and absolutely divested of all it’s rights, powers, and prerogatives:
and that he and his descendants and all persons acting by or through him, and
all other persons whatsoever shall be and forever remain incapable of the same:
and that the said office shall henceforth cease and never more either in name
or substance be re-established within this colony.
There are a few specific things to
note before moving on to the broader significance of this passage. The first is
Jefferson’s invocation of “the authority of the people.” This was a very
Lockean idea, that the collective population of a state possessed the authority
to depose their anointed sovereign. There was certainly precedent for such a
declaration in English history – namely the deposition and execution of Charles
I by Parliamentary authorities in 1649 – but it was nevertheless not a doctrine
that had seen a great deal of use in orthodox political discourse. Another
point worth observing is the manner by which Jefferson chose to address the
reigning monarch. Rather than refer to him as, “George the third, King of Great
Britain and Ireland, and elector of Hanover” (as George Mason’s successfully
adopted constitution for Virginia did), he called him simply “George Guelf.”
This was an example of what is sometimes referred to as “descralization” or
“desanctification,” whereby a person, object, or idea that has formerly enjoyed
a high degree of social esteem is insulted or denigrated as a means of robbing
it of its accustomed authority. The House of Guelf (or Guelph) was the extended
aristocratic family from which George III descended. Therefore, dispensing with
his royal titles and referring to him as George Guelf was a means of
demystifying the royal personage and emphasizing the fact that the king to whom
Americans were supposed to owe their allegiance was but a man himself.
Tellingly, the French Revolutionary government that was responsible for the
trial and execution of Louis XVI in 1793 made the same gesture when they began
to refer to the deposed king as “Louis Capet” (from the Capetian Dynasty to
which he belonged).
More
significant than the way Jefferson
chose to depose the monarchy in Virginia, however, is the mere fact of it.
Virginia was not simply to refuse recognition to the specific monarch against
whom its people nurtured grievances, but rather intended to render the office
itself “absolutely divested of all it’s rights, powers, and prerogatives [.]”
George III was not simply to be passed over for a more discreet alternative –
perhaps one of his sons, or a member of a cadet branch of the House of Guelf. Rather,
“He and his descendants and all persons acting by or through him, and all other
persons whatsoever [,]” were to remain ineligible to hold royal office in
Virginia for all time. Indeed, the office of monarch was to cease to exist
altogether, “never more either in name or substance [to] be re-established
within this colony.” These were bold, declarative statements that admitted of
no ambiguity or ambivalence. Jefferson, with the stroke of a pen, intended to
first diminish and then abolish forever the monarchy that had held sovereignty
in Virginia for over 150 years. Because, as aforementioned, the United States
is today a proudly republican nation, this might seem a rather obvious choice
on his part. It must be clearly understood, however, that it was not.
Not
every member of the Founding Generation was as ardently devoted to political
republicanism as Thomas Jefferson. Certain among their number, like the
moderate pacifist John Dickinson or the ambitious, manipulative Alexander
Hamilton, were personally quite attached to the British model of government and
would have preferred to see it perpetuated in an independent America. Indeed,
Hamilton notably advocated for the presidency as an elected monarchy before the
assembled delegates of the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 as a remedy for the
weakness of Congress under the Articles of Confederation. Though neither he nor
Dickinson were prepared to excuse the abuses that had been committed by the
contemporary British government, they were also seemingly unwilling to cast
aside a model of administration that have proven capable of overseeing a vast
and successful colonial empire. Doubtless they were not alone in this
conviction, and while Classical republican philosophy represented a dominant
strain of thought among the American colonial elite, it was not necessarily
clear, even at the height of revolutionary fervor in the 1770s, whether America
was finished with all forms of monarchy or simply with the British monarchy. On
this head, it also bears remembering that Jefferson’s monarchy-abolishing draft
constitution was written in the spring months prior to the Continental Congress
declaring American independence in July, 1776. Had an offer of peace and
reconciliation that addressed the colonists’ grievances turned up in
Philadelphia in, say, June of that year, the colonies may well have determined
to remain subjects of the Crown. This was, it must be admitted, an unlikely
scenario given how much blood had already been shed since the beginning of the
Revolutionary War in April, 1775. It was not, however, impossible, and for
certain residents of the colonies was doubtless fervently hoped for.
By
unequivocally disqualifying monarchy from having any role to play in the
political life of Virginia, however, Jefferson was seemingly attempting to steer
the Revolution in a distinctly republican direction. In his vision of an ideal
government, if his draft constitution is any indication, all power could be
clearly traced back to the people. All procedures for electing or appointing
legislators, executives, or justices were made explicit and unambiguous, and
accountability, in the form of frequent elections and term limits, was of
paramount importance. A monarchy whose origins were vague at best and whose
authority derived from traditions and precedents shrouded in the mists of time
was quite simply incapable of existing within an administrative framework so
defined. Some of Jefferson’s contemporaries might have disagreed, might have held
that a monarchy that was properly restrained by the law could provide a useful
stabilizing or mediatory function. Debates would be held on this very topic in
the years to come, and though with the benefit of hindsight it no doubt seems
laughable that the United States should ever have chosen to adopt a monarchy of
its own, it ought to be understood that the 1770s and 1780s represent an era of
experimentation in the history of American government. The creation of a
limited monarchy was as valid a choice as empowering an elected presidency, and
one to which the history of many modern constitutional monarchies surely
attests. It was not, however, a perspective that Jefferson was willing to
countenance. His draft constitution for Virginia accordingly bears the stamp of
his reactionary republicanism, and should be recognized as such.
Some
of the other particularly novel provisions that Jefferson enshrined in his
draft constitution had a more distinctly moral dimension than his dedication to
republicanism would necessarily indicate. One clause, for example, stated under
the heading “Religion” that, “All persons shall have full and free liberty of
religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any
religious institution.” This represented both a fundamental upending of
established practice and an admission on Jefferson’s part to a cause of which
he was particularly fond; namely, freedom of religion. As discussed in weeks
past, the state of Virginia was one of several colonies that recognized the Anglican
Church of England as the sole established purveyor of personal salvation. This
meant that Church activities – poor relief, the upkeep of Church property, and
the salary of Church ministers – were funded by locally-collected taxes, and
also gave the Anglican hierarchy the exclusive right to operate institutions of
higher learning. Under this system, those who professed a religion other than
the Anglican Church, or who wished to be associated with no particular
organized faith, were nevertheless compelled by law to pay for the upkeep of
the colony’s only recognized religious institution.
This became particularly
problematic once the evangelical zeal unleashed by the First Great Awakening
(approx.1730-1755) led to the growth of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist
congregations in Virginia. Members of these communities were required to fund a
religious establishment in which they had no stake at the same time that they
represented an increasingly substantial social and political force. The
Revolution provided temporary relief to these beleaguered populations precisely
because of the numbers they represented – the provisional government of
Virginia wished to enlist as many people as it could in favor of the Revolution
– but the toleration that was permitted during the war years promptly ceased
with the resumption of peace in the 1780s. Thomas Jefferson, who believed along
with many 17th and 18th century Enlightenment reformers
that the key to establishing universal peace laid in eliminating all causes of
religious persecution, took particular issue with what appeared to him to be a
bastardization of basic religious principles. He accordingly drafted the
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1777, though it was not passed by the
state legislature until 1786. This piece of legislation laid out a series of
objections to Virginia’s Anglican establishment that fixated mainly upon the
incompatibility of the personal expression of faith that was an individual’s
religion with the mechanisms of state coercion that the Church of England
enjoyed the use of. Doubtless because it sought to alleviate the burden under
which they lived and worshipped, the Statute received the greatest share of its
support from the Nonconformist community, and it ultimately succeeded in
breaking down Virginia’s longstanding religious establishment. As of
Jefferson’s death in 1824 it remained one of a small number of accomplishments
– a list which notably did not include being either Secretary of State or
President – of which he was most proud.
As of the drafting of his
proposed constitution in 1776, the Virginia the Statute for Religious Freedom
was still a year away from being written and decade away from being adopted.
All the same, the notion of codifying freedom of conscience appeared already to
form a part of Jefferson’s agenda. Indeed, though the abovementioned clause
within his draft constitution is considerably more succinct than the later
Statute, and delves into none of the moral or logical underpinnings the Sage of
Monticello ascribed to religious freedom, it unquestionably represents a stronger
legal protection of the free expression of individual religious faith. The
Statute for Religious Freedom was, after all, just a statute. A piece of
regular legislation, it was thus subject to repeal or alteration by future governments.
Jefferson was abundantly aware of this, and he responded, somewhat desperately,
by stating at the end of said document that though the government which passed
the act had, “No power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies
constituted with powers equal to our own […] if any act shall be hereafter
passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an
infringement of natural right.”
The relevant provision of the
draft constitution for Virginia conversely required no such elaborate caveat as
a means to prevent its being abolished because it was an explicit
constitutional provision. Whereas an act of the General Assembly of Virginia
would have required only a simple majority (51%) in the upper and lower houses
to become law, any amendment to the state constitution that Jefferson proposed
in 1776 demanded both an act of the legislature to that effect as well as the
assent of the majority of those assembled in fully 2/3 of Virginia’s recognized
counties. This represented a reasonably stiff barrier to alteration, and would
doubtless have ensured that the government Jefferson sought to erect in his
home state would not have been subject to frequent or fundamental changes
unless a substantially large majority of the population was in favor of the
same. In this sense, promoting freedom of religion via constitutional fiat
represented a much safer bet than depending on an act of ordinary law. Therefore,
although the clause enforcing freedom of religion in his draft constitution did
not give voice to the depth of Jefferson’s concerns on the matter, it would
have provided a substantially stronger guarantee that the citizens of Virginia could
practice whatever faith agreed with their sensibilities than the later,
much-lauded statute. Perhaps because the former was not adopted – the document
it was a part of having arrived too late – the Sage of Monticello sought to
intervene with the latter.
Then again, perhaps it was not
just a matter of poor timing. As mentioned previously, Jefferson’s draft
constitution for Virginia did find its way into the hands of the state’s
provisional government in time enough to at least be considered alongside the
favored, and ultimately adopted, proposal put forward by George Mason. Certain
elements of Jefferson’s version were even adopted and integrated into the final
draft, though the substance of it was put aside. While a comparison of the two
documents in question – Jefferson’s and Mason’s proposed constitutions – reveal
in many aspects strikingly different visions as to how Virginia should have
been governed, certain similarities would seem also to corroborate a more than
coincidental relationship between the two. That being said, the difference
between their respective approaches to the aforementioned concept of freedom of
religion provides a potentially enlightening insight into Jefferson perspective
on established religion and that of Virginia’s political mainstream. Mason’s
draft tellingly began with a sixteen-article declaration of rights, intended to
provide a clear indication of the limits of the government it was prepared to
outline. The last of these explicit articles stated, in full,
That
religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of
discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or
violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of
religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual
duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each
other.
Clearly Jefferson was not alone
among the Founding Generation in his dedication to the formal recognition of
religious freedom. Indeed, it is a testament to the liberality of the American
Revolution and it supporters that the political elite who supported the draft which
contained this provision were willing to do so at a time when religious
establishments were not only the global norm, but formed the only religious
context they themselves had ever known.
No comments:
Post a Comment