The Founding Fathers and the Welfare State

The Founding Fathers of the United States have been depicted in several different lights throughout history. Never at any one time has there been agreement about their composite or specific character. You can find disagreement over the qualities of these men in literature as early as Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, in which the protagonist mistakes a portrait of General Washington for that of King George III.

Modern Misconceptions about the Founding Fathers

Misconceptions abound about these men and their views. In Christian-right circles, these men are sometimes depicted as stalwart and anachronistically fundamentalist Christians. Leftists like Howard Zinn see them as one step removed from robber barons. Others assume that they were secretly anti-slavery because they want to respect these men but can’t get over their glaring possession of black-skinned human beings.

The most popular misconception about them regards their purpose in the War for Independence. Many people think that they were rebelling against monarchy. These men actually appealed to the king to save them from the pseudo-democratic Parliament.

Like any body of men, each of them was a complex being. As a whole, they were also complex. Some wanted to separate themselves from monarchy and create a libertine society that probably would have differed only a little from that which would be erected in France in the next few decades. Others were unabashed monarchists who simply wanted to move up the political food chain in their locale. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, years after the War for Independence had ended, Alexander Hamilton argued publicly for the institution of an elected monarchy.

The Cultural Difference

There was one quality of all those men, and the other people who occupied the newly-developed country, that was undeniably common. Each of them was self-sufficient. This aspect of their collective character is often trumpeted by so-called conservatives.

It is an undeniable fact. Virtually all people were, when compared to the average person today, self-sufficient. Even the large landowners, such as Washington and Jefferson, had to engage daily in their business affairs in order to keep things going. The only ones that truly lived off the labor of others and idled away their lives were the increasingly useless nobles of Europe and they were far away.

While a pseudo-libertarian like me might adhere to this idea and proclaim a gospel calling for a return to this self-sufficiency, it would be disingenuous. After all, self-sufficiency was not a choice. While it might have been character-building, it undoubtedly also involved a lot of tragedy.

People were self-sufficient because they had to be. It remains in doubt whether they would have been philosophically against a welfare state like our own or the kind seen in Europe today. There are certainly some Founding Fathers who would have been repelled by the state of things today. There is not a consensus among those cadavers about the issue, though.

Moving Forward

Nevertheless, we are not what they were. Most Americans, even the red-blooded kind that still go to Church on Sunday and stand for the pledge of allegiance, believe in some kind of welfare state that is clearly distinct from the early Republic. You can only cut so many social programs before even the most libertarian amongst us cries out in pain.

Perhaps the best way forward is not to look back at these complex men who inhabit a region of the space-time continuum which we cannot ever access. Some have surrendered to the present and simply await the inevitable downfall of a society which constantly spends more than it earns. They still face the same problem that pro-welfare individuals will face when it all comes apart. Each of these people will have to come together again to create the next state. That political organization will have to be derived from the human resources of the present and not from the spiritual remains of the Founding Fathers.