The Crisis of Civic Values

The year was 1800 and Thomas Jefferson was running for President. Reverend John Mitchell of New York’s Scotch Presbyterian Church was not at all happy about it. "The federal Constitution makes no acknowledgment of this God who gave us our national existence," he proclaimed in a "Voice of Warning to Christians""If you appoint an infidel for your president, and such an infidel as Mr. Jefferson, you will sanction that neglect, and you will declare, by a solemn national act, that there is no more religion in your collective character." Notwithstanding this diatribe, Thomas Jefferson won the election of 1800 and served two terms as President. Somehow, both the United States and Christianity survived.

Jefferson did, indeed, oppose any formal relationship between denominational religion and government. It was he who characterized the First Amendment as "building a wall of separation between church and state" in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut in 1802. In his first inaugural address, he condemned the "religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered." and warned that "we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions."

Yet for Jefferson what could provide moral guidance to both government and citizens in America were civic values--the self-evident truths set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This has been a distinguishing feature of our democracy. In 1922, no less a devout Catholic than G.K. Chesterton observed in What I Saw in America that "America is the only country in the world that is founded on a creed... set forth with theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just.. There is a creed, if not about divine, at least about human things." This is precisely what Jefferson had in mind.

Jefferson had the opportunity to apply these principles as President. "Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles," he urged in his inaugural address. "Political debate should be shaped according to the rules of the Constitution." People should unite in "common efforts for the common good." and "restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things." This is what it meant to rely on civic values to shape the democratic process.

I would suggest that this is just the sort of politics that millions of Americans are seeking today. Unfortunately, leaders in both parties have failed to provide it. Our own Senator Rick Santorum writes a book called "It Takes a Family" that urges us to work for the common good and then blames most of the problems facing America’s families on liberals. He asserts that since the Preamble to the Constitution speaks only of "promoting the general welfare," there is not much government can do, somehow ignoring Article I where Congress is mandated to "provide" for the general welfare." So much for a careful and accurate explication of Constitutional principles.

The national Democratic Party isn’t much better. Many Democrats now promise to defend "the people against the powerful," in a modern day form of Populism. But while the Populist Platform of 1892 certainly did condemn economic policies that were "breeding two great classes--tramps and millionaires," it went on to say that their purposes were identical with the "purposes of the national Constitution"--justice, domestic tranquillity, the common defense, the general welfare, the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. They understood--as many Democratic leaders today do not-- that the only way we can only change America for the better is by reminding people again and again what America is supposed to be.

So there is, indeed, a crisis of values in America today, but it is not about religion. Our main conflicts revolve around civic values. We are deeply divided on how best to apply the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the problems facing America today. What does it mean to "promote the general welfare?" How can we "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity?" These are questions we ought to be asking. The sooner political leaders start addressing them, the better off the rest of us will be.

Comments

[Ed Dodson]

Dear Ed,
I concur that we are suffering a crisis of civic values. The generation of Jefferson ignored Paine's charge that along with freedom of religion the Constitution must also mandate freedom from religion. Paine warned against the establishment of privilege in any form. Our crisis in values is, I suggest, traced to a basic failure to focus on the distinction between true liberty and inherited privilege. A century and more of reform effort has failed to diminish the destructive impact of privilege. At most, there has been some migitation of the worst consequences, but the problems are as unresolved as ever.

[Nate Vogel]

Dear Ed Dodson,
I am not sure what you mean by "a century and more of reform effort has failed to diminish the destructive impact of privilege". While I've been paying attention to it, American discourse seems devoted to inherited privilege. The idea that a person can pass his or her wealth and status to a child is proclaimed to be a right. Jefferson's call for the world to be ruled only by the living is anathema to society today. Not only are the problems unresolved, it seems to me, but mainstream America shudders at the idea of calling inherited privilege a problem. If I am wrong, I'd be glad to know.

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