[From One is a Crowd, by Frank Chodorov, 1952.]

It all began, as you know, with the Declaration of Independence. The Americans stated their case, both as to the disabilities put upon them by the British Crown and as to the kind of government they considered it fitting for men to live under.

The indictment was rejected and the issue was joined in battle. The god of war decided in favor of the Americans, insofar as removing the grievous rule was concerned; but in the establishment of a government to their liking the victors were on their own. Nobody could help them.

Even history could not make a suggestion; for never had there been a political establishment constructed or operating on principles laid down in the Declaration. These principles, moreover, were quite metaphysical, completely outside the realm of experience. They were: (1) that all men are created equal, and, (2) that all men are endowed with inalienable rights. When you come down to it, the two metaphysical concepts are really one. For the postulate of equality did not apply to human capacities or attributes, which are quite unequal and far beyond the scope of government, but to the enjoyment of rights or prerogatives.

In that respect, they maintained, all men must be considered on a par. This was a brand-new base for government. In all political science hitherto known it had been an axiom that rights were privileges handed down to subjects by the sovereign power; hence there was nothing positive about them. A new king or a new parliament could abrogate existing rights or extend them to other groups or establish new favorites.

The Americans, however, insisted that in the nature of things all rights inhere in the individual, by virtue of his existence, and that he instituted government for the sole purpose of preventing one citizen from violating the rights of another. Sovereign power, they said, resides in the individual; the government is only an agency of his will. If it fails to carry out its duties properly, or if it itself presumes to invade his rights, then the moral thing to do is to kick it out.

But, government is not an abstraction; it consists of people, and the inclination of all people is to improve upon their circumstances with whatever skills or capacities they possess and by whatever opportunities they meet up with. The power placed in the hands of this agency — to enforce the observance of an equality of rights — is in itself a temptation from which only the saintly are delivered.

The Founding Fathers were therefore confronted with a difficult contradiction: men being what they are, a government is necessary; and government being what it is, men must be safeguarded against it. Their recipe was the Constitution. Whether or not the ensuing government would materialize the metaphysics of the Declaration, the Constitution was, at any rate, a definite pattern; and when it was ratified and put into operation, it became the end-product of the Revolution.

To be sure, the Constitution cut corners around the doctrine of natural rights. We must remember that it was, after all, a political instrument, concocted by men. Only in its preamble can such an instrument serve the moralities; its working parts must be geared to the interests of the dominating groups in society, and hence it must be a compromise; to effect the compromise the moralities must be watered down. The Constitution was no exception. The assumed equality of rights was distinctly out of line with the profitable slave trade; owners of large estates wondered how it might affect their business; merchants and manufacturers deemed it dangerous to their preferred position. The Constitution was therefore so framed that the doctrine could not be employed to disrupt the status.

There were many Americans who contended that the profit of the Revolution was liquidated by the Constitution and at their insistence a Bill of Rights was included.

The Basic Social Struggle

The Founding Fathers forged well. Putting aside what it might have been, the Constitution did pay homage to the doctrine of natural rights. It did so by the simple expedient of putting restraints and limitations on the powers of government. We learn from their published statements that the intent of the Founding Fathers was to prevent the despised "democrats," should they come into power, from using it for spoliation. They were quite forthright about it, and not a little could be said in favor of their thesis. In recent years the "mob" they feared has indeed come into power and the result seems to support the contention of Madison, Adams, and Hamilton.

But regardless of their argument and regardless of their intent, the Constitutional shackles did in fact, though perhaps inadvertently, protect the people in the enjoyment of their cherished rights.

From this we learn a little heeded lesson in social science, namely, that the real struggle that disturbs the enjoyment of life is not between economic classes but between Society as a whole and the political power which imposes itself on Society. The class-struggle theory is a blind alley. True, people of like economic interests will gang up for the purpose of taking advantage of others. But within these classes there is as much rivalry as there is between the classes.

To the extent, then, that the Founding Fathers delimited the powers of the new government — by the system of checks and balances — to that extent did they render inestimable social service. And to that extent did they insure the victory of the Revolution.

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