Introduction: The Lies of Samuel Johnson
We have discussed the permutations of Toryism in the British Home Islands and its long struggle with Whiggery. Amongst the supporters for Toryism (in its Georgian form) we have counted the famed Dr. Samuel Johnson which have define it as fidelity to "The ancestral constitution" while Whiggery he defined merely as "a faction".
Dr. Johnson was a great intellectual who was revered by many of our o Founding Fathers. He was a great linguist, thinker and moralist. Unfortunately, these respective definitions are brazen and nasty lies.
Let us correct such strong language: Dr. Johnson engages in half truths in order to conceal the faults of his own position and accentuate those of his political opponents.
This was part and parcel of his usual political modus operandi: his famous quip about "the loudest yelps for liberty coming from the drivers of Negroes" (in his 1775 pamphlet "Taxation No Tyranny") ignores the fact that most people fighting for the liberty of America were not slave owners, that it was the British Empire that has protected and encouraged the Slave Trade and have employed slaves in the Caribbean in far worse conditions than in the American mainland. While this does not wipe away the stain of Slavery, it exposes the hypocrisy of Johnson's argument, who might as well have blamed the Americans of disenfranchising their women or underpaying their farmhands or any other social ill common to both the mother country and the colonies.
We must not judge the good doctor too harshly - those were the early, heady days of public opinion, and many rhetoric instruments that have now grown hackneyed, blunt and rusty with usage were than new, sharp and cutting, the very height of civil discourse and politics.
We have observed how Toryism could have never make a serious claim to be more "ancestral" than Whiggery, both being native English factions. Furthermore, the description of Whiggery as a "faction" - that is, a cabal of ideologues could have just as aptly be applied to the Tories.
As a matter of fact, as we have seen, the Tories were the first to use the weapon of ideology - as oppose to doctrine - in the modern sense to their political advantage. The reason being that the Whigs, being the party of the Legislature had had a natural advantage that negated the need for ideology for a long time.
The Advantage of Whiggery
Let us juxtapose Samuel Johnson's definition of Tories and Whigs with that of an ideological Whig, Robert Molesworth:
My Notion of a Whig, I mean of a real Whig (for the Nominal are worse than any Sort of Men) is, That he is:
One who is for keeping up to the strictness of the old Gothic constitution, under three estates of King (or Queen), Lords and Commons, the legislature being seated in all three together, the executive entrusted with the first, but accountable to the whole body of the people in case of maladministration".
As we can see, the Whigs of the early 18th Century held themselves up not as innovators in the name of Popular Sovereignty but as upholders of the ancient, aboriginal (or as Molesworth says "Gothic") English constitutional order.
Here we come to an important feature of Whiggery, which is the assertion that it is not a usurper on the King's "ancestral" powers but the upholders of those of the other constituent bodies of the State; that it is the monarch and his Tory supporters who are the usurpers of those powers and rights.
This notion; as combative and biting as when it was first conceivably Molesworth, remained alive and well as a British tradition and is echoed in the rhymes of Kipling:
All we have of freedom, all we use or know—
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw—
Leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the Law.
Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing
Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the king.
Till our fathers 'stablished, after bloody years,
How our King is one with us, first among his peers.
So they bought us freedom-not at little cost—
Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost.
Over all things certain, this is sure indeed,
Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.
(The Old Issue, Kipling, 1899)
It is important to note that Kipling, a loyal and fierce Tory, saw himself as an Old (that is, pre-American Revolution) Whig. Thus, we should see the view expressed here as Molesworth pressed through the crises and alteration of politics and historiography of the 19th Century.
Thus we find that by the 18th Century, the Whigs possessed an ideology, which they have conveyed to the public using, among other things, printed works such as those written, translated or prefaced by Molesworth.
However, the Whigs have been second - that is, last - in the race to invent to and introduce ideology to the English masses. The reason lies in the inherent advantage the party supporting legislative power has against one supporting executive power, especially in conditions preceding modern communications and media.
The premodern executive- that is, the Kings, his lackeys, courtiers, favorites and clerks- are by necessity fewer in number and more concentrated in the national capital, in particular in the King's own court and those places where the administrative work of the State actually takes place.
This is a narrow and close circle, the legitimacy to power, actual knowledge of its workings and the ability to promise its use in favor of a particular constituency of each agent within the system stands in opposite relationship to his accessibility to the Public without.
That is to say, the King is the one person who can promise the greatest emoluments in exchange for support, but he is cut off from everyone except his small circle of retainers, who suck up the Royal Favor and distribute it to their own outer circle in exchange for support and so on.
Thus, the persons actually engaged with the public are the smallest of fish in the pond, they can do very little in favor of any actual constituency and thus depend on their superiors.
Therefore, the Executive is essentially barred from engaging the masses in its support for selfish reasons and must rely on, and cultivate, their good will and loyalty towards him whenever he finds himself in contest with another body within the State.
The Legislature, however, not only possesses a ready made network of spokesmen on its behalf, those agents, being, as their name suggest, the living members of the Legislative body, themselves each possess a modicum of the very power at its center.
A Royal Commissioner can, at most, promise scraps of the Royal Favor or "talk to his superiors" (no word in the English language is, or ever was, more hateful to any and all petitioners).
A member of Parliament can promise to at the very least "fight for" his constituents aggrieved rights and interests. Even if he fails in his endeavors, he can be construed to have expended all his legal power, and to have lost valiantly.
If the legislator in question can chalk up his failure to the overbearing power of the Executive rather than his own unpopularity amongst his fellow legislators, such a presentation would actually strengthen the Legislature's hold of public opinion at the expense of the Executive.
This advantage of the Whigs as the party of Parliament (and of the Parliamentarians and Roundheads before them) have been so prevalent that they had no need for ideology.
Of propaganda and basic doctrine they have plenty and they used them to advantage. But these were useful mostly to broadcast local grievances on the national scale and to assert that these were, in fact, legitimate grievances.
Of a whole theory rationalizing and emotionalizing their entire view of the proper nature and origin of English government they had no need until the Tory constructed one themselves.
Finding themselves on the backfoot, and their coalition of interests splintered between various factions (lacking an ideological cement), they have spent they entire reign of Charles II recovering from the blows that were landed on them by the propaganda machine the King fashioned himself to in exile, of which he was the main component, as explained in the previous chapter.
With this in mind, let us examine the fortunes of Whiggery in its greatest stronghold.
I: The Power of Colonial Legislatures
English colonization of North America have not started in Plymouth Rock, but in Jamestown. For the first few decades of their existence, these two polities (and the colonies that would split from them) evolved almost as parallel universes. Even during the English Civil Wars, New England and Virginia had supported the two opposing side (which have led to Virginia gaining the moniker "the Old Dominion" during the Restoration.
Nevertheless, the conditions of North America between 1607 and 1760 forced similar political forces to assert themselves, which have led to the entrenchment of Whiggery, rather than Toryism, in America.
To begin with, the chief executive of the British State, that is, the King, was absent from America (no reigning British monarch had ever visited North America until 1939). His representatives, the governors of the various colonies, varied in authority and respective ties to the Crown and the local elites. More often than not, a royal appointee had found himself isolated in a strange land, surrounded by men with superior local connections and knowledge, with whom he had to choose either to make one league or pick a quarrel. The latter option often led to his defeat and exile from power. For that reason, in many cases the Crown either chose to delegate to the Colony in question the right to appoint its own governors, had adopted a policy to appoint local men to the office or have the appointed governor treat the office as a sinecure while the actual work was done by a local dignitary.
Such was the case of Virginia, where the governor appointed by the King since the Restoration, were either absent (and represented by the Lieutenant Governor or the President of the Governor's Council - the latter an elected office) or at loggerheads with the Governor's Council - this body was, at that period, made up of local wealthy men appointed for life by the King.
This of course did not stop the members to see themselves responsible first to their own interests and that of the colony in which they resided. The fact that they often sat as a General Assembly in a unicameral joint session with the elected legislature of the House of Burgesses, manned likewise with the prosperous progeny of the best families of Virginia, men to which they had greater cultural, familial and interested affinity than to some arrogant transplant from across the water - only exacerbated the Governor's weak position whenever he attempted to reestablish royal - that is, executive- authority at the expense of local authority expressing itself through the Legislature.
A not dissimilar situation persisted in Massachusetts, where the Governor was isolated further due to the Council being elected by the colonial legislature (the Lower and General Courts. All three bodies are still in existence in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts). Besides, Massachusetts (and New England in general) was always less receptive to royal authority than Virginia and the rest of the South.
New York, as the only colony on the American mainland to be acquired by conquest, was the single outlier amongst the Thirteen Colonies which had struggled to assert the superior power of the legislature over that of the royal governor. Nevertheless, this struggle was popular and consistent, and both English and Dutch New Yorkers regarded their right for home-rule through a legislative assembly as a worthy goal.
II: Consilio Suo- the Nature of the American Executives
The Privy Council:
We have already seen how the Council's of Massachusetts and Virginia have been a check on the power of the Governor. The nature of these bodies, their origin and the effect they had on the legacy of latter day American executives ought to be contemplated.
We have already touched upon the origins of Parliament in a previous chapter. But hitherto we have ignored an older and at times, more powerful English royal institution- that is, the Privy Council.
To keep matters brief, the Privy Council was one of a number of English institutions that have emerged from the Norman Curia Regis, that is, the Royal Court, which combined in it the functions of both the Executive and Judiciary branches. While the the law courts were separated from it by Henry II and subsequent Angevine kings, the Privy Council, which had originally granted force of Law to the petitions of the future House of Commons, had gradually shifted to fulfil the unique role of the official advisory body to the Monarch.
In a way this body served as the accountable external mind of the King. Meetings were recorded and the conclusions drawn either as Orders(-of the King)In-Council or Orders-of-Council. This way, the acts of the Executive became traceable, provable and legal. There would be no more embarrassing "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest" incidents.
However, as the power of Parliament rose it came to assert its role in dictating to the monarch the composition of his council. The first incident of a Parliament impeaching, that is, removing by judicial decree, a minister of the Crown and appointing another in his stead, was during the Good Parliament of 1376. While the achievements of this Parliament were soon reversed by John of Gaunt and his Bad Parliament of 1377, this precedence was remembered, cherished and would eventually be used again and again.
The Executive role of the Privy Council decayed further as monarchs grew more prone to directly correspond directly with their secretariats or confer with just a small number of influential minister-councilors (the Tory "Cabal" of Charles II's reign and the latter day Whig Junto were such group of ministers), having their action sanctioned as Orders in / of Council, a practice justified by the growing numbers of honorary members of the Council- which laid the foundation to the Cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister, who is, the Council - or at least the active part thereof.
The Council had also grown accustomed to decide policy in general terms and have the particulars decided by committees- formed either purely from Councilors or at headed by them- whose actions are later confirmed in Council- at least officially (while the Privy Council rarely actually confers nowadays, such practices continue to this day in Great Britain, in particular in those administrative functions which, over the 19th century, were delegated by Parliament to it, having mostly to do with the regulation of healthcare and higher education).
The Influence on American Executive Culture:
The British Settlement of North America had coincided with exactly the era which saw the British Executive contending for the supreme power in the State with the Legislature- and losing. Therefore it is not surprising that American Executives had traditionally evolved to be dependent upon, or at least owe a certain deference to, their legislatures.
The semi-executive Councils had a great sense of their own importance. Both of the most important colonies in America started their life as commercial (or semi-commercial) enterprises, free from the direct authority of the Crown, to which they submitted voluntarily. Thus, while acknowledging the King's prerogative to appoint their members, the Virginian Council remembered days in which it was not so. Besides, the chief Executive actually present in their midst was a governor- a mere appointee of the King, not materially different from the councilors.
No one in his right mind could have entertain the thought that the governor has superior insight into the wishes or interests of the distant, largely uninterested monarch, nor did the councilors care of he did.
It was their country, their people, and they were the cream of her crop. God help the court-dandy who thinks himself capable of gaining mastery of them and all that they acquired by generations of sword and toil at the price of flattery, a witticism and a well placed bribe!
Thus the American polity had acquired an anti-executive bias. In America, to be an Executive officer means to be under suspicion and scrutiny. To bear the brunt of all accusations and grievances against the Administrative State, but have little to no powers of direct control and supervisopn over its daily workings. Such oversight belongs to the Legislature, who exercise them as a way to impinge upon the chief executive by proxy- if he be a political rival of the party holding the legislative houses.
This led to the normative American Executive to practice Government by Consultation, if not by a vote. The President, the various governors and the last of the mayors in this great country are empowered to do great many things, but they are alive to their diminished prospect of having those things done unless they consult, cajole and convince the legislators who confirm their chief aids and vote them their budgets, as well as the senior administrators who can make their term in office particularly embarrassing and miserable. Those who forget that are doomed to waste their term desperately trying build a parallel scaffolding of dubious reliability and legality, and end it in frustration and anger that can only lead to full fledged madness.
IV: The Preservationist State: The Formation of America's National Governent 1776-1789
The Lessons of Revolution and Independence:
For the first 23 years of the National Government's existence, it had no Executive.
Or rather, its legislative assembly, the Continental Congress (officially "The United States in Congress Assembled") held in its hands the judiciary, legislative and executive powers of the American confederation. The closest thing to an executive office was the President of the Congress - who resembled a British Speaker of the Commons rather than an actual head of government. All executive work was done by committees of the Congress - in this sense, they resembled the British traditions of both Parliament and the Privy Council.
That a country whose regional components had an elaborate and well developed government bodies, with distinct and divided responsibilities for each branch and office, should have no ministries, no administrative structures and no responsible officers seems strange. The riddle unfolds itself when One considers the conditions surrounding the formation of American National Government.
The Revolution was waged specifically over the corporate liberties of the legislative assemblies of the colonies. A significant portion of the faults of George III (as listed by the Declaration of Independence) are disruptions of, interferences in, and attempts to bypass the legislative process of the various colonies. The private liberties of individuals- who found themselves deprived of trial by jury, or regulated unfairly out of markets in favor of British monopolists and so on- where merely incidental casualties in the King's struggle to kill the old American government system.
In this light, it is no surprise the States were hesitant to set up any substantial National Executive that might repeat the attempt.
The Jeffersonian declaration that "Governments are raised amongst men to secure their rights... life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" was an expression of a widely shared sentiment in America, and majority of Americans believed they do have such government in place and do, in fact, enjoy protection of these rights already- namely, through the government of the States. These they did by persecuting criminals, enforcing contracts, chartering useful institutions, organizing the militia, regulating commerce, collecting and disbursing public monies, and all the other normal functions of an administrative State.
Like every state, American Colonial government was imperfect.
It punished some crimes too severely, some of which were no crimes at all. The militia was not always deployed wisely or justly. Public monies were, on occasion, misspent or mislaid, trade rules were often unreasonable and counterproductive, some institutions enjoyed compulsory membership.
Nevertheless these governments were considered to be reasonably well-functioning by the societies they administered, which, considering the restrictions of technology and human nature, was probably accurate.
Besides, an Englishman (and Colonial Americans considered themselves Englishmen, replete with all the natural rights and expectations of Englishmen) always expected to have suffer some grievances at the hands of his government officials, what was his local legislator was there for, after all, if not to demand redress for those grievances?
Under the old Imperial system, the role of the British Government was, in times of need to protect the Colonies from external threats- at least those a given colony couldn't comfortably face alone or those pertaining to the Empire as a whole.
In such cases, the British Navy, maintained mostly by external (from Colonial point of view) resources, would fulfill a dual role of blocking overseas threats and carrying over a hard core the King's Regulars, around which the Colonial militias (and allied Indian troops, the relationship with whom were maintained by and through colonial soldiers, surveyors, traders, trappers and diplomats) could coalesce into a truly Imperial force. Local officers would be given "Colonial Ranks" and roles in this temporary force, which would be suspended into its constituent elements once Peace was re-established.
The Colonists viewed this as a reciprocal relationship between equal polities partnered in the same national institution - the British Crown.
Britain gave protection. They served in her wars on land and sea, contributed timber, fur and other unique resources, and expanded the reach and influence of the British Crown and the sphere of British trade. This was a fair trade and beneficial to both.
There was a great deal of affection between individuals and corporate bodies on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as business and family ties. One of George Washington's greatest mentors as a young man was General Braddock, who fell in the Seven Years War, after being evacuated from the field of battle in Washington's own arms. There were ties of marriage business, education and religion between the Mother Country and its colonies. Dr. Benjamin Rush had gotten his education in Scotland, for instance. The Bishop of London was the episcopal head of all Anglican churches in America. Virginia squires banked in the City and Boston merchantmen bottoms were insured with Lloyd's, American pine-timber, grain, salted cod, furs and sailcloth piled high on Bristol piers.
This is the reason that the Colonist were not resentful when they were called to fight in worldwide conflicts that were waged for the interests of the Empire as a whole or of Great Britain in particular. The four Anglo-French wars waged between 1688 and 1763 were undertaken mostly considering the position and standing of Britain in Europe. To the degree Colonial interests in North America were concerned, they were secondary. It is true the Empire contributed to the defense of America. It is also true that without their ties to the British Empire, the Colonists would have not required such degree of protection. Considering that colonization was a project undertaken by British subjects under sanction of the British Crown, the entire question is moot. The Colonists had, in their own view and that of their fellow citizens across the waters, a duty to fight the enemies of Britain wherever they were. The Crown had a reciprocal duty to defend them from the enemies of the Crown. The Revolution was no more an act of ingratitude then the Intolerable Acts were. In this regard, both Kipling and Thomas Paine are in the wrong.
The Revolution, which arrived as the Colonists became convinced that the British Crown had transformed from the protector of their polities into a threat to them, had severed the political ties with London (the religious ties would follow when few non-juror Scottish bishops had ordained the first American Episcopalian bishops).
The experience of the War had taught the States how the Army and Navy of the Union can effectively replace the role the British ones had formerly played. Lacking the resources and experience of the British Navy, the American Navy couldn't do much beyond hope to attach itself to that of some powerful ally, as they did during the War. The Army, however, had proven itself capable of replacing the King's Regulars as the heart of the American force in any armed conflict.
The problem that remained was that not even the Army could not effectively be supplied, manned or commanded under the present structure.
The Continental Congress contained some of the most brilliant minds and most patriotic heart of the day. Yet its inability to come to decisions with sufficient speed an clarity even at times of emergency had brought no lesser a man than George Washington to the brink of despair. The members of the Congress were not, officially, officeholders themselves. Rather they were envoyes dispatched to a standing diplomatic conference between the various States. The situation was worse than we have let up - not only wasn't a National Executive, there was no National Government at all. Instead, there were 13 governments negotiating joint actions by delegates constantly wary of displeasing their masters back home in the State Legislatures of Virginia, New Hampshire or New York:
For the more convenient management of the general interests of the united States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislature of each State shall direct, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power reserved to each State to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead, for the remainder of the year.
George Wahsington can be credited with preventing tmthis none-govermment, the least active and lightest of touch in the whole wide world, to a conspiracy by unpaid soldiers, by his sheer patriotism and humanity ("Gentleman, you must pardon me, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in service to my country") in 1783.
The second revolt against the United States, Shay's Rebellion, was suppressed by cruder means and lesser men, and the entire episode disgusted Washington and other leading figures so much that they became convinced of the need of an actual National government being put in place- one way or another. The Constitution adapted in 1789 gave America such a government..
Defense of Constitutions and the Class Democracy of John Adams:
The new government resembled most of the State government in that it had clear delineation between the responsibilities of the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. It also resembled the government of the most important states by dividing the legislative process in three- two houses who can veto and amend each other's proposed legislation, and a president who could only veto legislation passed by both, but not pass a new law
Bicameral legislatures first raised the ire of the Marquis de Condorcet and Anne-​Robert-​Jacques Turgot. These two Frenchmen wrote (amusingly enough, before the start of the French Revolution, while their own country was an absolute monarchy) a sharp rebuke of these states which have adopted the tripartite, bicameral style of government as a blind imitation of the British system of Commons, Lords and Monarch, unfitting to a new and original democracy.
John Adams is, without question, the purest and most penetrating political philosopher amongst the Founding Fathers. Where Jefferson muses, he contemplates. Where Madison and Hamilton constructs, he digs to the fundaments. His answer to America's French accusers is historical, but also ethical, practical and ethical.
In his Defense of Constitutions (the last volume thereof, Discourses on Davila was published in installments during his tenure as Vice President) he lays down the following principles:
Artificial aristocracies are undesirable and America is blessed to have none. By Artificial he means such aristocracies as created and maintained by the State, by bestowing titles, privileges and symbols
However, Natural aristocracy is ever present and inevitable. Since human beings are unequal in their abilities and fortune, in conditions of Freedom, there would always be a person, and at time a family, or multiple persons and families, which are held in high regard and therefore are voted in to office even in conditions of perfect political freedom and legal equality.
These natural aristocracy is divided between those who owe their standing directly to their wealth, which gives them outsized influence in the community through their dependents, employees and beneficiaries, and those who enjoy the genuine esteem of the society. Both can exist over multiple generations and entrench a number of families, not merely individuals, in a favorable position, thus creating a genuine upper class.
Rather than a detriment to the Free Republic, the intergenerational, slowly evolving natural aristocracy is a boon. In the longue durée of the rise of a given family, it fosters and passes on traditions of propriety, wisdom and loyalties that attaches it to the existing order and restrains its members from abusing their position against the Republic. Rather, they come to see themselves as the guardians thereof.
However, that happy state can exist only in a Republic where power is properly divided rather than concentrated in one place. A simple (that is, absolute) monarchy, the aristocracy's entire experience is either collaboration with the King in the oppression of each other and the commoners while slavishly flattering him for morsels. In a pure democracy, their experience is one of frustration and anger at the People for denying him their role (or any role) in the body politic. In a pure aristocracy, or an oligarchy, their experience is that of abusing the people.
So, reasons Adams, what is the most likely structure in which all the powers of society come together to "create good and equal laws at the consent of the entire People"?
A simple, single assembly into which everyone is eligible to enter, he argues, won't do- the aristocrats would compete with the representatives of the People and, being aristocrats with all their natural advantages, would naturally win a majority of the seats. The most prominent one of their number would rise to lead them. The genuine representatives of the People would be helpless against them and thus, a pure aristocratic oligarchy would be created.
Such an assembly will be naturally divided into three parts. The first, is some genius - some ome masterly spirit, who unites in himself all the qualities which constitute the natural foundation of authority - such as benevolence, wisdom and power; and all the adventitious attractions of respect, such as riches, ancestry and personal merit. All eyes are turned for him as president or speaker.
The second division comprehends a third, or a quarter, or, if you will, a sixth or an eighth of the whole; and consists of those who have the most to boast of resembling their head.
In the third class are all the rest, who are nearly on a level in understanding and in all things.
Such an assembly has in it not only all the persons of the nation, who are most eminent for parts and virtues, but all those who are most inflamed with ambition and avarice.
Every man in the second class will have constantly about him a circle of the members of the third, who will be his admirers, perhaps afraid of his influence in the districts they represent, or.. or connected with him in trade, or dependent upon him for favors.
There will be much envy, too, amongst individuals of the second class, against the speaker, although a sincere veneration is shown to him by the majority.. they and their friends will be much disposed to claim the first place as their own right. This will introduce controversy.. and those who wish for the first place and cannot obtain it, will of course endeavor to keep down a speaker as near upon a level with themselves as possible, by paring away the dignity and importance of his office, as we saw, was the case in Venice, Poland and, indeed, everywhere else.
A single assembly thus constituted.. it is to make a constitution and laws by its own will, execute those laws at its own pleasure and adjudge all controversies.. What is there to restrain it from making tyrannical laws, in order to execute them in a tyrannical manner? Will be it pretended, that the jealousy and vigilance of the people, and their power to discard them at the next election , will restrain them? even this idea supposes a balance, an equilibrium.
(Adams, John; Defense of Constitution, 2000 V. I, Chapter II, PP. 149-150, Regency Publishing Inc., Washington D.C.)
Even if all the aristocrats would be killed, banished or barred from office, the new assembly would represents, in and of by itself a new aristocracy. Such a fit would raise all the members of the new Assembly, holding all the power of the State in their hands, to such degree of prominence that the basis of their power would cease to be as the People's representatives but an expression of their own reputation and influence, and this reputation and influence would not be divided equally, which once more would bring us to the division of power within the assembly between the Leader (or few leaders sooner or later coming into competition), the outer circle of prominent members surrounding the leadership, and the great mass of backbenchers:
What combination of power in society, or what form of government, will compel the formation, impartial execution and faithful interpretation of good and equal laws, so that citizens may constantly enjoy the benefit of them, and may be sure of their continuance? The controversy.. whether a single assembly of representatives be this form?
.. I am for the negative. Because such an assembly will, upon the first day of its existence, be an aristocracy; in a few days, or at least years, an oligarchy; and then it will divide into two or three parties, who will soon have as many armies;
.. after which, when the battle is decided, the victorious general will govern without or with the advice of any council or assembly as he pleases; or else, if the assembly continues united, it will in time exclude the people from all share even in election, and make the government hereditary in a few families.
(Ibid, PP. 156)
The argument that John Adams advances here is at the same time Conservative and Liberal.
It is a Conservative argument, indeed the founding argument of American Conservatism, that American politics must look to those of the Old World in order to learn what forms of government achieve what results. Unlike Thomas Paine, John Adams was under no illusions that Americans have an opportunity to reinvent politics since the nature of politics, he argues, is rooted in human nature itself. However, once the goals of Adams' desired politics are revealed, he appears to us as a liberal - even a radical - in his singular concern for the People and his distaste for aristocracy of any kind, but in particular to the nobility of service or, as he calls it artificial aristocracy. Further, by defining wealth as one of the forms of natural aristocracy and then denouncing aristocratic rule whereby the unpropertied are deprived from the vote, Adams was denouncing the system under which all current Republican government was done at that time (property requirements for voting would be abolished by one state after another only a few years after the publication of the Defense).
The remedy that Adams offers to the problem of influential individuals is also Conservative: Instead of fighting the inherent inequalities within Society, accept them and contain them in their proper place to preserve popular government:
The rich, the well-born, and the able, acquire an influence among the people that will soon be too much for simple honesty and plain sense in a house of representatives. The most illustrious, therefore, must be separated from the mass, and placed by themselves in a senate; this is, to all honest and useful intentions, an ostracism.
A member of the senate, of immense wealth, the most respected birth, and transcendent abilities, has no influence in the nation, in comparison of what he would have in a single representative assembly.
When a senate exists, the most powerful man in the state may be safely admitted into the house of representatives, because the people have it in their power to remove him into the senate as soon as his influence becomes dangerous.
The Senate becomes the great object of ambition; and the richest and the most sagacious wish to merit an advancement to it by services to the public in the house. When he has obtained the object of his wishes, you may still hope for the benefit of his exertions, without dreading his passions; for the executive power being in other hands, he has lost much of his influence with the people, and can govern very few votes more than his own among the senators.
(Ibid, Preface, PP. 115-116)
Here John Adams makes a bold prediction, that had proven itself largely true: The Senate is a dead-end and a trap.
The business of a senate is so removed from the public eye, the method of electing the senators so unlike those of election to the lower house and their terms so long (in the US, it is 6 years, in other countries they are appointed for longer term or even for life), that they lose their grasp on popular politics and are therefore rarely capable of leading a mass movement.
Furthermore, as Adams had predicted, the reputation of the Senate concentrate in it highly ambitious and talented administrators and politicians. As a result, the ambition of each senators is checked by those of the others, an elaborate structure of rules is laid down to deny any single one senator an oversized influence within the body.
Independent senators rarely achieve much. Their policies may lead to them leading a vocal faction outside of the Senate, which may give them a chance at the Presidency (such leaps often fall short of the mark and are achieved only by rare talents) but their policies rarely are voted into law.
And yet the Senate has an important role to play, which offers none of what the 18th Century called Influence (such as King George III) exercised, that is the power to use the machinery of government to reward political allies and punish rivals, but offers sufficient field of action for influential, and therefore potentially dangerous men, to be tempted to step into the trap.
Adams design is rooted in his firm belief that:
In every country we have found variety of orders, with very great distinction. In America, there are different orders of offices, but none of men. Out of office, all men are the same species, and of one blood; there is neither a greater nor lesser nobility
(Ibid PP. 130)
Adams is a Conservative, but far from a Tory. He desires neither a Feudal Order nor a Nobility of Service. He wishes for the American States to be administered well, but for him, a state administered without the input of the People and without considering their needs and benefits, is ill-governed. In this regard, we have uncovered the the first facet of American Conservatism: It is the recognition of the commonality of all Americans and the desire to nurture and enjoy the talents of a natural aristocracy without having the latter imposing its will on the People.