Building the National Community
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The Need for National Community
In the decade following the revolution, the rhetoric of public life
did not change
- The revolution reinvigorated the power of the errand
- The revolution had converted the errand to national purpose
- The vast West (to the Mississippi) had been won in the revolution,
a new wilderness to tame.
- Virginia added the idea that liberty was in the ownership of land,
thus uniting the errand and liberty
- The social contract continued to structure government
- The authority of governing was from the dispersed population up
- The spirit of republican government captured in Jefferson's concept
of the government of hundreds: each hundred households would govern themselves;
they would elect a representative and a hundred such representatives would
form the next layer of government; and so forth.
- Faith in common sense continued
- Rhetoric of rights and liberty dominated public life
- Public Life in America still revolved around the court house
. . . But changes brought by the revolution intensified the need for
National Community
- After the Revolution, the new American activity was commerce
and manufacturing
- Under British rule, the British kept control of commercial activities.
America was a colonial farm.
- Although there was increasing commerce among the colonies as the revolution
approached and developed, American institutions for commerce and manufacturing
were not ready.
- The agrarian-based rhetoric of America provided no basis for public
commerce
- "Rights" have nothing to do with commerce. Commerce is a
matter of exchange not aggression and protection.
- A "Liberty" based in land would provide no language to organize
a work force
- The rhetoric of public life left a government that could deal only
with local problems: currencies were disparate; road control remained in
the counties; there was no guarantor of debt.
- The rhetoric of the revolution was a rhetoric of change; but stability
was necessary for commerce
. . . So a rhetoric of national community developed in the decades
after the revolution
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Many activities provided a rhetoric of National
Community
- Declaration of Independence gave an identity. Read each July 4 at ritual
celebrations of national independence.
- An indigenous history (for example, William Wirt's Patrick
Henry) and literature developed
- Constitution provided a vocabulary, logic, and place for a national
discourse
- The debates over the constitution, particularly the Federalist
Papers, spread the language of national community throughout the states
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Old ideographs were transformed into ideographs
of national community
- <Rights>
- The Declaration
of Independence had made <Rights> a basic element of American
identity
- Virginia contributed conscience and her Statute of Religious Liberty
- The constitution captured this power: The Bill
of Rights made the constitution the guarantor of Rights, thus identifying
the national government with the protection of rights rather than as a
threat to rights
- <Liberty>
- Resistance to the constitution focused on the new government as a threat
to "liberty"
- The Bill of Rights reversed this judgment; placing the new national
community as the protector of individual rights
- The Bill of Rights also sealed the domination of negative liberty as
the American version of liberty
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New Ideographs given power by the Constitution
became cornerstones of the National Community
- <People>
- "We the people of the United States . . ." began the preamble
to the constitution
- The constitution defined the social contract of the <people>
to establish the United States as the fundamental cornerstone of American
democracy
- The ideograph became the term with which representatives expressed
their connections with their constituents
- This power continues to our day
- <Union>
- " . . . in order to form a more perfect union . . ." defined
the union as a primary motivation for American government.
- Madison declared that the accomplishment of the constitution was to
provide a large scale democracy.
- Proving the viability of a Union became the American errand in the
constitution
- <Law>
- The constitution elevated law to the basis of American government.
The common justice of the frontier was eclipsed. The secularization of
New England's social compact into a body of law was completed.
- Government now pivoted on the law. A legislature created laws; the
executive was defined as an enforcer of laws; and the courts were the arbitors
of law.
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These ideographs combined with other vocabulary and logic to provide
a way of talking about government
- The "machine" metaphor was the central metaphor for government
(a metaphor that permited the encouragement of industry)
- The constitutional debate transformed Jefferson's mobile of hundreds
into a machine of governing
- Constitution created "interchangeable parts" (representatives,
factions) that fit into patterns (coalitions, majorities, institutions)
that moved the wheels of government.
- Madison claimed that through the "machinery of government"
he had created a "republic on a large scale"
- The rhetoric of government became a rhetoric of means and ends -- a pragmatism
- The Constitution named the ends of government
- Government became a practical art for getting things done.
- The aiding of government and manufacturing became a governmental function
- Selection of means and their relationship to ends became the motivational
rhetoric of national government.
- Above all, the Errand which motivated and provided the end was redefined
- America was unique because of its experiment in republican government
- American mission was to expand civilization and orderly government
across the continent
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The Constitution provided a new National
Public Space
- Created a rationale for giving authority to representatives
- Took the right to petition and made it the expression of participation
- Created Congress as a separate public space and elevated debate over
means to the essence of republican government
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The National Community provided a non-local
public space
- Local public space required reinvigoration outside of government
- Americans have searched for local public space since
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