The Founding Fathers Were Not Perfect
The issue with the mythification of the American Founding Fathers and the Constitution
If you’re from the United States, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard or been taught about the Founding Fathers as essentially infallible. However, I think the view of the Founding Fathers as near-perfect is flawed at best and dangerous at its worst.
“The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions, whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.”
George Washington
All too often I see people talking about the Founding Fathers as larger-than-life figures who created a near-perfect constitution and flawless governmental system. In reality, while the U.S. Constitution was undoubtedly ahead of its time in the 18th century, it is still an 18th-century document designed in and for that period. The ability to amend the Constitution is evidence that the framers of that document knew it was imperfect and expected it to change with the times. Regardless, the Constitution is often touted as untouchable.
I don’t mean to say that the Constitution shouldn't be the law of the land or that the Founding Fathers were all terrible people, just that they weren’t mythological figures as they’re sometimes made out to be, and that the Constitution is, and should be, subject to change. The Founding Fathers were flawed human beings like you or me. Certainly well-educated and intelligent men, but we have those today too. We have more people who are better educated and more knowledgeable than the Founding Fathers than the United States had people in their day. In 1790, the U.S. population was 3.9 million while today it is over 330 million, 24.1 million of which have a master’s degree and 4.7 million have doctorates. Not to mention the fact that we can instantly access essentially any information the Founding Fathers themselves knew about government and political theory through the Internet. If we had to create a new Constitution today, we would be more than capable of doing so.
Overall, the Founding Fathers shouldn’t be seen as larger-than-life supermen, but rather the flawed yet accomplished human beings they were. I’ll finish this post off with a quote from Thomas Jefferson which I think sums up my thoughts on this pretty well.
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
Thomas Jefferson
Sources
Bernstein, Richard B. The Founding Fathers: A Very Short Introduction, 2015.
Coffman, Steve. Words of the Founding Fathers: Selected Quotations of Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton, with Sources. McFarland, 2012.
