Progressivism and Limited Government

This post is the next in a series of posts about freedom, America, and what threatens our freedom today. If you missed the previous posts, I hope you are able to go back and read them, as they lay the groundwork for this and future posts.

The Constitution and Limited Government

Since 1787, there have been many countries across the world that have decided to institute constitutional governments for their people, seeing the good that it has done in the United States. They have looked to our constitution as a model of how to do that. Thus, we could say, and rightly so, that the Constitution has been our country's most valuable export. Truly, the Lord inspired "wise men" to write the Constitution and he did so "for the rights and protection of all flesh" (D&C 101:77). In speaking of the enormous blessings that the Constitution would bring to people across the entire earth, the Lord stated that it, the Constitution, "belongs to all mankind" (D&C 98:5). Pause for a moment and think of what the world would be like without it.

The U.S. Constitution was written to give governmental framework to the universal truths found in the Declaration of Independence. Those principles rest safely upon, and only upon, the three main pillars of the Constitution, which are limited government, representation, and the separation of powers. These ideas and the truths stated in the Declaration constitute the "just and holy principles" upon which The Lord stated he had founded the Constitution (D&C 101:77). Thus, "anything more or less than" these principles "cometh of evil" (D&C 98:7).

Many of the grievances that the colonists had with with King George III were related to the large and overpowering nature of the government that he had placed over them. The Founders understood that the only way that a government could be "of the people, by the people, and for the people," as Lincoln put it, is if that government were limited. If the government becomes too large, it becomes bigger than the people and no longer able to be controlled by the people.

The Founders thought that the way to make sure that government stays limited, was by establishing a government of "enumerated powers." Government, for the Founders, is created by free people who consent to be ruled on condition that the government protect their God-given rights; that being the sole purpose for which “Governments are instituted among Men,” as stated in the Declaration. To accomplish that, the people would authorize the government to do certain things, but sovereignty would remain with the people, along with all other powers not specifically granted by the Constitution.

Alexander Hamilton, one of the authors of the Constitution, originally argued that including a Bill of Rights with the Constitution was not consistent with our form of government (The Federalist Papers, Number 84). He felt that having a list of things that the government cannot do was a moot point; being that a government of enumerated powers means that, if the Constitution does not give the government a specific power, then it does not have that power. For example, if the Constitution does not grant the government power to restrict the freedom of the press, then it cannot restrict the freedom of the press. The retaining of power by the people was the rule; the granting of it, the exception. Hamilton felt that the retention by the people of powers not enumerated was both fundamental and already implicit in the Constitution. The whole point of this key aspect of the Constitution was to ensure that the government sticks to its principle purpose of securing the rights of the people. This great pillar of the Constitution is all but lost in our day.

Progressivism and Limited Government

The gradual erosion of the concepts of limited government and the enumeration of powers began in the late 1800’s with the rise of the Progressive Movement in the United States. The driving force behind this gradual loss stems from a change in the country’s thought as to the purpose of government. As stated above, the Founders believed that government’s primary purpose was to secure the fundamental rights that God had given to free individuals. Progressives, on the other hand, thought that the main purpose of government was to be a problem solver. For them, we are to look to government to fix all of the problems that arise in modern society, problems that are unique to each age in history. The Founders could not have given us a government capable of solving these problems, because they could not have envisioned the things we face. Thus, for progressives, we need to discard the old political ideas and adopt new principles that can meet the challenges of our day. This change in the country’s view of the purpose of government may very well be the single most influential thing that progressivism has brought about in America.

With the purpose of government being to solve problems, progressives felt that it needed to be freed from all restraints that kept it from performing that task effectively. The following quotes from leading progressives demonstrate how they thought about what government should be. The first is from Woodrow Wilson. In an essay comparing socialism with democracy he stated:

 ‘State socialism’ is willing to act through state authority as it is at present organized. It proposes that all idea of a limitation of public authority by individual rights be put out of view, and that the State consider itself bound to stop only at what is unwise or futile in its universal superintendence alike of individual and of public interests. The thesis of the state socialist is, that no line can be drawn between private and public affairs which the State may not cross at will; that omnipotence of legislation is the first postulate of all just political theory.
Applied in a democratic state, such doctrine sounds radical, but not revolutionary. It is only an acceptance of the extremest logical conclusions deducible from democratic principles long ago received as respectable. For it is very clear that, in fundamental theory, socialism and democracy are almost, if not quite, one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals. Limits of wisdom and convenience to the public control there may be: limits of principle there are, upon strict analysis, none. (Socialism and Democracy, 1887)

Thus, for Wilson, and many other progressives, Socialism and Democracy are “one and the same” in the sense that their should be no limitations placed on government as it benevolently acts in “its universal superintendence alike of individual and public interests.”

The next quote is from Theodore Roosevelt. In his autobiography, he spoke about his view of the role he had as President of the country. He stated:

The most important factor in getting the right spirit in my Administration, next to the insistence upon courage, honesty, and a genuine democracy of desire to serve the plain people, was my insistence upon the theory that the executive power was limited only by specific restrictions and prohibitions appearing in the Constitution or imposed by the Congress under its Constitutional powers. My view was that every executive officer, and above all every executive officer in high position, was a steward of the people bound actively and affirmatively to do all he could for the people, and not to content himself with the negative merit of keeping his talents undamaged in a napkin. I declined to adopt the view that what was imperatively necessary for the Nation could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific authorization to do it. My belief was that it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the departments. I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power. In other words, I acted for the public welfare, I acted for the common well-being of all our people, whenever and in whatever manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional or legislative prohibition...I believed in invoking the National power with absolute freedom for every National need; and I believed that the Constitution should be treated as the greatest document ever devised by the wit of man to aid a people in exercising every power necessary for its own betterment, and not as a straitjacket cunningly fashioned to strangle growth. (The Presidency: Making an Old Party Progressive, in Rough Riders, an Autobiography)

This view of the Presidency became known as “the Stewardship Theory.” It is essentially the exact opposite of the concept of a government of enumerated powers. For T.R. and the progressives, the government having the power to do whatever was needed was the rule; the specific constitutional limits were the exception. This kind of government is know as a government of plenary power, or of general power. It brought back to America the old principle of the Prerogative of the Crown; government being able to do anything it deems necessary, so long as it is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Thus, the way the Founders viewed the Constitution was “a straitjacket cunningly fashioned to strangle growth.”

Limited Government Today

Very large numbers of people today, whether Democrat or Republican, inside or outside the government, believe that government's main purpose to be a problem solver, rights are secondary. For progressives today, government is for eradicating the ills of society and the problems of modern life, as history rolls on towards an eventual state of virtual perfection. And if that is government's role, then all limits to it's power should be removed, so as not to hamper its ability to serve the public good. 

In 2009, Representative Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House, was at one point taking questions from reporters about the healthcare reform law. During those questions one reporter asked her, "Where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact and individual health insurance mandate?" She look at him and, with impatience and derision in her voice, said, "Are you serious? Are you serious?" She then shook her head and took a question from another reporter.

If we, as a nation, do not decide to restore the Founders view of government as being one of enumerated powers, instituted for the express purpose of securing our rights, we risk finding ourselves under a government that will gladly cast those rights aside in the name of the greater good. The choice is ours as a nation, and it depends upon people understanding clearly the options placed before them. Please try to educate those you know on the nature of that choice. I pray that the principles that fostered the freest and most prosperous nation in the history of the world will be restored in the hearts and minds of its people. 

Progressivism and the Founding Principles

This post is the next in a series of posts having to do with freedom in America and the things that threaten that freedom in our days. Please see the previous posts, especially the one on constitutionalism, for a brief explanation of the principles that I will be discussing in the next few posts on progressivism. Also, remember that The Lord taught that he established the Constitution of the United States based on "just and holy principles" (D&C 101:77-80) and that "whatsoever is more or less than [the Constitution], cometh of evil" (D&C 98:7). By sharing this I don't necessarily mean that people who do not agree with the constitution are in every case evil, or that the Constitution is in every word perfect; often those that promote progressive ideas are trying to do good. However, I do mean that those ideas that aim to destroy the principles on which the Constitution is based and the essential governmental framework that it establishes do come of evil, and, if we are not careful, we will someday sorrow for our lack of loyalty to that great charter. In the words of President Ezra Taft Benson "once freedom is lost, only blood--human blood--will win it back" (A Witness and a Warning, Oct 1979).

Progressivism

Shortly after the Civil War, some of the same animus towards the principles of the Constitution that drove the Confederate fight for slavery started to appear again in the form of new ideas and new criticisms against the concepts in our founding documents. These ideas coalesced into a movement known today as the Progressive Movement. It began to pick up speed in the late 1800s and had its first big successes in the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. It has continued to grow steadily, though slightly changed and somewhat veiled, until the present day.

The essential core of the ideas put forward in the Progressive Movement was to "progress" or move beyond the political thinking of the Founding. They felt that we needed to do this because the Founders never envisioned the problems that we face today, and so could never have given us a government that could handle those modern challenges. For the progressives, Government's main purpose was to be a problem solver; not to secure the natural rights of citizens, as the Declaration teaches. Thus, we needed a new approach to government that could tackle present problems. In a campaign speech during his run for President in 1912, Woodrow Wilson gave a good summary of how progressives felt and thought. He said:

We are in the presence of a new organization of society. Our life has broken away from the past. The life of America is not the life that it was twenty years ago; it is not the life that it was ten years ago. We have changed our economic conditions, absolutely, from top to bottom; and, with our economic society, the organization of our life. The old political formulas do not fit the present problems; they read now like documents taken out of a forgotten age. (The New Freedom, pg 3)

For Wilson, and many other progressives, the principles found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are from "a forgotten age," and we have to move beyond them if we hope to navigate modern societal waters.

German Historicism and Societal Evolution

The progressives had great confidence in the progress of history. Many of them were either educated in Germany themselves or by someone else educated in Germany. There they espoused the ideas of G.W.F. Hegel, German historicism, and the German theory of the State; the same ideas that produced the Germany of both World Wars and that heavily influenced the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin, and the China of Mao. For example, Woodrow Wilson, John Dewey, and Frederick Jackson Turner were all educated at Johns Hopkins University, a school founded specifically for the purpose of bringing German education and principles to America. They believed that history was on an ever-improving track, continuously trending towards a better future. Thus, the Founding principles would inevitably be superseded by new and better principles as humanity progresses through time.

Progressives were also very influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, and they applied its principles, not just to biology, but to government and society as well. The following quote is again from Woodrow Wilson, and it expresses the evolutionary view of government that the progressives held:

The Constitution was founded on the law of gravitation. The government was to exist

and move by virtue of the efficacy of “checks and balances.” The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. No living thing can have its organs offset against itself, as checks, and live. (What is Progress?, The New Freedom)

Thus, for the progressives, the principles of evolution dictate that we must move beyond the separation of powers, the checks and balances established by the Constitution, so that the Government can adapt to its historical environment, solve modern problems, and survive to the next phase in its onward progression. Progressives believed that, because society is a product of the historical conditions of its own age, if we create a Government that can dominate the conditions, we can control society's evolution and shape it towards a Utopian state. That objective is what determines the power that Government should have and no means should be off limits in reaching that end and eliminating the ills of society.

Progressivism and Natural Rights

If the progressives were going to accomplish their regulatory and redistributive agenda to achieve a better society, they knew that they had to erode the limitations that the Constitution placed on them. To do so, they knew that they had to dissolve the principles of the Declaration upon which the Constitution is based. Thus, the ideas of human equality, rule by consent, and natural rights founded in "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God" had to be refuted.

The following three quotes are examples of the progressive's efforts to do so. The first is from Woodrow Wilson in a speech in 1911 to The Jefferson Club in Los Angeles, "honoring" Thomas Jefferson and his hand in writing the Declaration of Independence. Wilson stated, "If you want to understand the real Declaration of Independence, do not repeat the preface." The preface of the Declaration is the first few paragraphs that contain the statements about "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God," "all men are created equal," and "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Wilson wants us to not repeat that part, so that we can understand the Declaration. The rest of the Declaration is the list of grievances with King George; in other words, the problems of that particular time in history.

The second quote is from John Dewey, a leading progressive and professor at Columbia University. He championed many of the ideas of G.W.F. Hegel, including historicism, moral relativism, and a denial of objective truth. In an essay he criticized earlier liberals (i.e. The Founders) and their statements of universal "self-evident" truths. He stated:

The earlier liberals lacked historic sense and interest...But disregard of history took its revenge. It blinded the eyes of liberals to the fact that their own special interpretations of liberty, individuality and intelligence were themselves historically conditioned, and were relevant only to their own time. They put forward their ideas as immutable truths good at all times and places; they had no idea of historic relativity, either in general or in its application to themselves. (The Papers of John Dewey: The Latter Works 1925-1953, Boydston)

For progressives, each age has its own truths that shape how Government should act; no truths are universal and applicable to all mankind at all times in history.

The third quote is from Frank Goodnow. Frank Goodnow was a prominent progressive at the turn of the 20th Century. He was the President of Johns Hopkins University and the first president of the American Political Science Association. In a speech given at Brown University Goodnow is contrasting the American view of liberty with the European view at the time. He teaches that, as usual, America is behind the times and that we need to catch up to European thinking. He stated:

In a word, man is regarded now throughout Europe, contrary to the view expressed by Rousseau, as primarily a member of society and secondarily as an individual. The rights which he possesses are, it is believed, conferred upon him, not by his Creator, but rather by the society to which he belongs. What they are is to be determined by the legislative authority in view of the needs of that society. Social expediency, rather than natural right, is thus to determine the sphere of individual freedom of action. (The American Conception of Liberty, Goodnow)

Thus, for progressives, the Government and the law endow men and women with their rights, not God, and those rights are very much alienable if Government decides that the greater good of society requires it.

Defending the Founders

Now juxtapose the views held by these prominent progressives to the views held by two other prominent Americans of their time. The first is Abraham Lincoln. In a letter giving his thoughts on Thomas Jefferson and his role in writing the Declaration, Lincoln wrote:

All honor to Jefferson - to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression. (Letter to Henry Pierce, Lincoln)

The second is from Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge was President shortly after Wilson and he often had to refute progressive ideas. If you are like me, you will remember him being portrayed in history books in school, written by progressives, as being a lousy and inconsequential President; while progressive Presidents, such as the Roosevelts and Wilson, as being great men that saved the country during crises of war and economic disaster. It is amazing what you learn when you actually read the things that they wrote and believed. Coolidge, in a speech commemorating the the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, stated:

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

I will ask you to turn inward for a moment. Ask yourself the following questions, and give yourself a quiet moment to reflect. Which of the opposing views presented above, that of progressivism or that of Lincoln and Coolidge, rings more true to your heart? Which is more likely to secure and perpetuate freedom to the next generation? I invite you to act on the feelings that you have.

Progressivism Today

Since it's inception, progressivism has grown steadily in its influence in America. Many people today espouse the ideas made popular by these early progressives, both inside and outside of the Government, and in both the Democratic and Republican Party. For example, when asked by a journalist during a debate in the 2008 democratic primary if she was a "liberal," Hillary Clinton stated, "I prefer the word ‘progressive,’ which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century. I consider myself a modern progressive." Another example of modern progressivism is found in the think-tank known as "The Center for American Progress." This large and influential organization has an entire project dedicated to preserving and perpetuating the ideas and legacy of the early progressives. These are just two of many, many examples of how progressivism is alive and stronger than ever in our society today.

Modern progressives are not as forthcoming as the earlier progressives in terms of their open opposition to the principles of the Founding. They couch their ideas behind nice sounding platitudes that only a fool or a reprobate would be opposed to; after all, who's against progress, or clean air, or affordable health care, or level playing fields. However, they don't tell you that accomplishing those objectives in the way they have in mind requires the abandonment of the principles established in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If we, as a people, are not vigilant in the protection of our freedom, we will likely lose it.

When Ezra Taft Benson was the Secretary of Agriculture for President Eisenhower, he was assigned the task of meeting with Nikita Khrushchev to help the Soviets improve how they farm. This is what Ezra Taft Benson said about that encounter:

As we talked face to face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his and all other grandchildren will live under freedom, he arrogantly declared in substance, "You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands."

Communism, socialism, Marxism, and progressivism have the same intellectual ancestry, found in Prussian/German philosophy, G.W.F Hegel, and others. If we do not hold fast to the principles of the American Founding, we will, as Coolidge and Khruschev intimate, move backward to a time "when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people." Only virtue, knowledge of the truth, and the courage to act on both will allow freedom to win the day. I pray that it will.