Sunday, February 28, 2021

William Livingston's Political Philosophy

This article by Myron Magnet details the political philosophy of American founder William Livingston. I may have reproduced it before (from 2012); but I read it again and the following passage stuck out at me.

At its heart, the college debate was political, and it led Livingston to set forth his deepest political beliefs, the first public exposition of Lockean social-contract theory in the colonies, complete with Locke’s insistence on the right to resist and depose a monarch. Journalistic and unsystematic, his half-dozen essays on the subject add up to a coherent argument that provided the Revolution’s key justification. Untangled, it runs like this.

Before there was any government, nature made men free and equal and endowed them with rights. Yet people voluntarily “consented to resign that Freedom and Equality” and put themselves under “the Government and Controul of” a ruler, as “a Remedy for the Inconveniences that sprang from a State of Nature, in which . . . the Weak were a perpetual Prey to the Powerful.” To “preserve to every Individual, the undisturbed Enjoyment of his Acquisitions, and the Security of his Person,” men “entered into Society” and appointed magistrates or kings “to decide Controversies,” investing them “with the total Power of all the Constituents, subject to the Rules and Regulations agreed upon by the original Compact, for the Good of the Community.”

This was a choice of the lesser of two evils, for “Government, at best, is a Burden, tho’ a necessary one. Had Man been wise from his Creation, he . . . might have enjoyed the gifts of a liberal Nature, unmolested, unrestrained. It is the Depravity of Mankind that has necessarily introduced Government; and so great is this Depravity, that without it, we could scarcely subsist,” wrote Livingston, more strongly influenced by Thomas Hobbes’s vision of the State of Nature as a war of all against all than even Locke was. To guard against man’s inborn tendency to invade the “Person or Fortune” of his neighbor, he wrote, echoing Hobbes’s understanding of psychology, we “have ceded a Part of our original Freedom, to secure to us the rest.”

 

Some scholarly folks have noted that the philosophers' "state of nature"/social contract and rights theory is kind of ridiculous. 

Perhaps it was, but it was also fundamental to the American Revolution (more the Revolution than writing and ratifying of the US Constitution). 

I admit that this theory has nothing to do with the Bible or classical political philosophy. However, the interesting part of the story is many ministers bought into this theory, incorporated it into the pulpit in order to convince populations of American "Christians" to go along with it.

4 comments:

Tom Van Dyke said...

However, the interesting part of the story is many ministers bought into this theory, incorporated it into the pulpit in order to convince populations of American "Christians" to go along with it.

Name one? Mark David Hall has found only one non-Anglican who embraced this theory, John Joachim Zubly, and his Calvinist congregation in Savannah threw everything he owned into the river. "Ministers" is an unhelpful term here without distinguishing the Protestant sect.

This was a choice of the lesser of two evils, for “Government, at best, is a Burden, tho’ a necessary one. Had Man been wise from his Creation, he . . . might have enjoyed the gifts of a liberal Nature, unmolested, unrestrained. It is the Depravity of Mankind that has necessarily introduced Government; and so great is this Depravity, that without it, we could scarcely subsist,” wrote Livingston, more strongly influenced by Thomas Hobbes’s vision of the State of Nature as a war of all against all than even Locke was. To guard against man’s inborn tendency to invade the “Person or Fortune” of his neighbor, he wrote, echoing Hobbes’s understanding of psychology, we “have ceded a Part of our original Freedom, to secure to us the rest.”


NB: Although a Framer and signer of the Constitution, William Livingston abstained from signing the Declaration of Independence. Although an important footnote to American history, he remains a footnote.

Jonathan Rowe said...

No! I was referring to Patriotic ministers who cited Locke from the pulpit -- state of nature/social contract and rights -- to justify revolt in the face of Romans 13. Samuel West (unitarian) is just one of many.

They weren't all unitarians either. If I'm not mistaken Witherspoon did this too. He didn't cite Rutherford et al., but Locke and discussed this concept of the "state of nature"/social contract and rights.

The FFs rejected HOBBES' notion of the concept, but strongly endorsed Locke's.

Jonathan Rowe said...

And yes singer of the Constitution, Governor of NJ during the Revolution William Livingston was a "non-key" Founder.

Tom Van Dyke said...

They weren't all unitarians either. If I'm not mistaken Witherspoon did this too. He didn't cite Rutherford et al., but Locke and discussed this concept of the "state of nature"/social contract and rights.

The FFs rejected HOBBES' notion of the concept, but strongly endorsed Locke's.



There is a conflict between rights as conventional [contractual] and natural [inherent unalienable].

Must our rights be removed from the stable foundation of nature, and placed on the precarious and fluctuating basis of human institution?


James Wilson answers no--only that any conventional [civil, contractual] surrendering of rights to the state is "in trust," which is to say revocably. This is not the position of Edmund Burke and William Blackstone, whose position is far more Hobbesian, that our surrender to the social contract with the state [parliament] is near-absolute.

Wilson: “After all; what is the mighty boon, which is to allure us into this surrender? We are to surrender all that we may secure ‘some:’ and this ‘some,’ both as to its quantity and its certainty, is to depend on the pleasure of that power, to which the surrender is made. Is this a bargain to be proposed to those, who are both intelligent and free? No. Freemen, who know and love their rights, will not exchange their armour of pure and massy gold, for one of a baser and lighter metal, however finely it may be blazoned with tinsel: but they will not refuse to make an exchange upon terms, which are honest and honourable—terms, which may be advantageous to all, and injurious to none.

“The opinion has been very general, that, in order to obtain the blessings of a good government, a sacrifice must be made of a part of our natural liberty. I am much inclined to believe, that, upon examination, this opinion will prove to be fallacious. It will, I think, be found, that wise and good government—I speak, at present, of no other—instead of contracting, enlarges as well as secures the exercise of the natural liberty of man: and what I say of his natural liberty, I mean to extend, and wish to be understood, through all this argument, as extended, to all his other natural rights.”