Explaining America
Beitzinger, A. J.
Books: THE HUMEAN CONDITION IN his controversial recent study, Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, Garry Wills argued that the philosophy underlying the Declaration is not...
...At most this indicates different degrees of human combination of "interest" and "virtue...
...The de$ire to be guided by "the scientific aim and method of the book" is at once helped and hindered by the heavy reliance upon Hume...
...Both men wanted a strong central authority above the faction-ridden state governments...
...It has only been recently recognized that Hume had a significant influence on Madison and Hamilton, as well as other of the founders...
...Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form...
...The point is that the Federalist, when read in light of what Wills calls "the scientific aim and method of the book," precludes the facile reduction, by "realist" political science, of normative motivations such as "common good" and "public virtue" to "interest," "power," and "equilibrium...
...has been that the result is "deadlock" in government...
...With two more books in the series promised by Wills perhaps such questions will be addressed if not answered.rt answered.r...
...This leads to an over-intellectualization of a series of practical political issues...
...51 for separation of powers and bicameralism...
...Wills grants a limited validity to this interpretation but sees it finally in error because it misses the main point...
...On this basis Madison argued in paper No...
...Books: THE HUMEAN CONDITION IN his controversial recent study, Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, Garry Wills argued that the philosophy underlying the Declaration is not Lockean individualism but eighteenth-century Scottish moral sense communitarianism...
...10 and 51) by political scientists from Beard (economic determinism) and Laski (pluralism) to Dahl (polyarchy) and Burns (deadlock...
...What is government but the greatest of all inflections on human nature...
...They necessarily and constructively used the rhetoric of republicanism with its emphasis upon what Wills calls "the proper equations between extent of territory, size of government, number of representatives" to effect a concrete political interest...
...His main focus is determined by the critical questions raised regarding the meaning and validity of the central papers (Nos...
...Madison precludes disjunction - betting that extended republicanism will allow a higher degree of virtue than narrow interest to emerge...
...In paper No...
...And yet the old questions linger Was Hamilton really the dedicated republican we find in the Federalist...
...Granting the validity if not the originality of Wills's interpretation, fundamental shortcomings exist apart from his not altogether regrettable proclivity toward controversy...
...If one grants these assumptions one can see how Wills can validly speak of the "Hamiltonian Madison" and the'' Madisonian Hamilton.'' Led by Hume he proceeds to the heart of the book, a spirited discussion of Federalist 10 and 51, interjecting an insightful discussion of papers 78 and 81 which concern judicial review...
...Was Madison at once a formidable and heroic protagonist of republicanism, a poor political scientist, and, as Wills half-heartedly concedes, an even lesser prophet...
...Institutions are then of the highest importance insofar as they are believed or shown to bring forth through refinement rule by the higher type of man...
...The texts I have looked at say that interest is to be eliminated from the political arena, distilled out of the process, just as religious sects are...
...He begins by unwarrantedly assuming: (1) that the Madison of the Federalist has been generally misinterpreted by scholars as a strict-constructionist, anti-British Constitution advocate...
...He confronts a problem when he acknowledges the Federalist writers' pessimism concernWe have been told that Madison pitted interest against interest in a constructive process of self-correction...
...In what amounts to a rehabilitative apotheosis of the Founding Fathers, the communitarian Jefferson of Wills's first book is now joined by Madison and Hamilton as apostles of virtue and common good...
...That Madison would soon greatly qualify his position in the crucible of practice by working with Jefferson beginning in 1791 to organize a political party (something he condemned as "faction" in paper No...
...As Wills sees it Madison sought to replace government by "interest" with government by "virtue" directed toward a common good understood not as a mere resultant of conflicting or compromising group interests...
...Garry Wills Explaining America ing human nature with their emphasis on the ubiquity of self-love and passion...
...the point, however, is that the Humean orientation tilts his book in the direction of an exercise in ideas removed from specific context...
...A. J. Beitzinger The thrust of political science criticism (Dahl, Burns, etc...
...Wills no doubt would admit this...
...Those who wish to pin ideological labels on controversial writers like Wills will be confused...
...Not only does he reject their interpretation but because Hume is his guide he also rejects significant points propounded by the presently ascendant Country-Whig republican school (Bailyn, Wood, Pole, Pocock...
...The result downplays historical context and specific motivation...
...10 Madison argued that faction (self-interested combination) was inevitable in free government and could be checked by an extension of territory which would render it difficult for any one group or combination of groups to control...
...This is indeed supplemented but not overcome by Madison's statement: "As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence...
...This is revisionism which cuts both left and right...
...and (2) that the Hamilton of the Federalist has been misconstrued as a broad constructionist mixed-government monarchist...
...Quite plausibly he argues that one misreads the Federalist if one ignores the writers' intentions and construes in light of the actual historical working of American government...
...The aim of the electoral "refining" process is to produce disinterested men at the top of the ruling structure...
...In his equally lively and learned new book, Explaining America: The Federalist, Wills continues his revisionism by following the earlier lead of Douglass Adair and reading the Federalist Papers in light of the social thought of the Scottish moral sense philosopher, David Hume...
...10) and that Hamilton as Secretary of Treasury would put main emphasis on interests and nationalist policies, Wills, as interpreter of the Federalist, properly and quite conveniently ignores...
...Thus the filtering of unrefined popular virtue within a broad territorial extent through elections of representatives from large districts tends to the selection of men of probitas and gravitas with a broad vision of public good...
...This is a valid reading if one deletes Wills's gratuitous Humean intrusion of a series of elections and focuses on the other factors, particularly the large districts...
...In like vein Wills tends to treat "interest" and "virtue" as if they were disjunctive terms with individuals distinguished accordingly...
...Wills, however, writes as if Hume and not "experience" which Hamilton and Madison saw as "the best oracle of wisdom'' was their principal guide...
...EXPLAINING AMERICA: THE FEDERALIST Garry Wills Doubleday, $14.95, 286 pp...
Vol. 108 • May 1981 • No. 9
