“Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence” by John Jay
Project Federalism: Paper 2: The Case for Our Constitutional Government Summarized With a Modern Perspective
A universal truth is the necessity of government, and in order for a government to function people must yield some of their natural rights to it. This prompts the question of state governments vs a federal government.
It was before accepted that unity was best for the people of America, but now some politicians are instead proposing that division into sovereign states will best benefit them.
It is good that America isn’t formed from “detached and distant territories” but rather one expansive land. And it is good that this country was formed by people untied in their ancestry, language, religion, politics, customs, and the bond formed from a war for “liberty and independence.”
It would be wrong to waste these unifying factors by splitting into separate “distinct confederacies.”
“As a nation we have made peace and war; as a nation we have vanquished our common enemies; as a nation we have formed alliances, and made treaties, and entered into various compacts and conventions with foreign states.”
The federal government we now have was formed during war and devastation, without time for thoughtful consideration and development. It is no surprise it has proved inadequate. But the people saw that and called for the “convention at Philadelphia” to redesign it, rather than do away with it, as they saw it necessary for the preservation of both the liberty they had fought for and the unity that enabled them to do so.
The men at this convention were undistracted and formed the new plan out of love for their country.
Remember that this plan is merely a recommendation and that it warrants “candid consideration” before acceptance or denial. However, as was pointed out in the previous paper, this may be wishful thinking; people are always motivated by personal interest, external influence, or ambition. But, as proven with the “Congress of 1774,” there are also always people who “[reason] and [decide] judiciously.”
These people saw that “the Congress was composed of many wise and experienced men” who brought diverse information with them from different parts of the country and worked together solving problems for the interests of “public liberty and prosperity.” Hence, they trusted the advice of that Congress.
Many members of that Congress were present too at the convention which should lend it an extra mesure of credibility.
Congress and the convention both agreed that the protection of the Union was of the upmost importance and it is the premier goal of the new plan. Any attempts to form multiple confederacies would destroy the Union “and I sincerely wish that it may be as clearly foreseen by every good citizen, that whenever the dissolution of the Union arrives, America will have reason to exclaim, in the words of the poet: “FAREWELL! A LONG FAREWELL TO ALL MY GREATNESS.””
It’s interesting that Jay starts his first paper with the acknowledgment of the social contract of government, that we give up some freedoms for the benefits government provides. This was the major counter-argument against a federal government, that it would take too many freedoms and that the benefits aren’t worth it.
But by also premising that “Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government,” considering the alternative is anarchy, Jay frames the debate about the Constitution around how many freedoms to give up, instead of whether we should give any up at all. This then supports his argument that preserving the unity that brought America to where it was then will best benefit the people.
Tying this to modern politics, the recent progressive movements, Bernie Sanders and Elisabeth Warren’s campaigns, for example, have been built around the idea that the government needs to provide more benefits than it currently is. They see the social contract as being tilted against the people and want to use the federal government to correct that problem.
What I see as the most prevalent counter-argument to the progressive agenda is, again, that it would take too many freedoms. Ironically, those who use the founding fathers’ vision of America to argue against Sanders and Warren’s policies, as I too have done in the past, are in principle actually voicing the anti-federalist opinion.
However, there are differences between the situations of our two times that renders this comparison imperfect; for instance, we’re not talking about forming a lasting national government or preserving the Union, just free healthcare, which serves a different purpose.
Also, the founding fathers actually held the same concerns that the anti-federalists did about the freedom limiting nature of government (as they demonstrate in later papers which I will cover in the future), they just saw it as a necessary trade-off and, as I mentioned before, framed the debate around the question of how much freedom to give up.
For these reasons, I believe the wariness about progressive policies is justified; we are currently in a position where the government already provides the public far more than the founders imagined, thereby also limiting our freedom far more than they intended.
Lastly, I couldn’t help but notice Jay’s not so subtle endorsement of a system of political representatives instead of direct democracy. We need to trust experienced and wise people who will bring their different information together and use reason to come up with solutions to problems. We can’t trust any old person to do the same and not bring their personal, possibly corrupt, agenda into it.
P.S. For those of you who, like I was, are confused about the lack of “dangers from foreign force and influence” in this paper, Jay writes the next three papers as continuations of this one and gets into that topic in them.
