[Discussion] Intellectual Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy

[hpaksoy@ttacs.ttu.edu]

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-SHEAR@h-net.msu.edu (March, 2002)

Douglass G. Adair. The Intellectual Origins of 
Jeffersonian Democracy:
Republicanism, the Class Struggle, and the Virtuous 
Farmer. Edited by Mark
Yellin. New York and Oxford: Lexington Books, 2000. 
xxvi + 185 pp. Foreword,
introduction, notes, bibliography, index. $75.00 
(cloth), ISBN
0-7391-0125-0; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 0-7391-0125-0.

Reviewed by Brendan Michael Dunn, Department of 
Government and International
Affairs, University of Notre Dame.


Republican? Certainly! But What Kind?: Evaluating 
Adair's American Founding

Douglass Adair completed this essay, his dissertation, 
in 1943. Thanks to
Mark Yellin's efforts as editor, The Intellectual 
Origins of Jeffersonian
Democracy, "one of the most influential dissertations 
on the history of the
American Founding and political thought," is now 
readily available to
scholars (p. xiii). In this work, Adair attempted to 
bind together the
theoretical beliefs of America's leading Founders with 
their practical
recommendations for constitutional government. He tried 
to explain how the
political theory of the Founding influenced the 
political science of the
Founding. His effort was quite successful, and even 
more influential.

If the only criterion for review was the book's own 
place in intellectual
history, Adair would have to receive three cheers. As 
Yellin notes, the
dissertation "quickly gained notoriety, with a list of 
borrowers that
resembled 'a who's who in early American history'" (p. 
xiii). In part, this
fame stemmed from Adair's pathbreaking approach to his 
subject. As the title
suggests, he consciously broke from the economic 
determinism of Charles
Beard, best captured in the title of Beard's 1915 
study, The Economic
Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy. Yellin explains that 
Adair "meant to
challenge the Beardian paradigm by arguing for the 
importance of ideas and
beliefs in shaping the ways the Founders saw the world 
and made sense of
their experience. In doing so, he explicitly rejected 
the notion that the
Founders' framing of the Constitution was reducible to 
simple economic
interest" (p. xiv). Thanks to this pioneering work, the 
stage was set for a
generation of scholars who, rejecting the Beardian 
method, offered a much
more detailed portrait of the Founding.

So we are appreciative. Yet, one must also ask whether 
Adair's study helps
today's scholar to better understand the American 
Founding. Yellin correctly
states that "in drawing connections between the 
Scottish Enlightenment and
the Founding, and in setting the terms of the debate 
over the relative roles
of republicanism and liberalism" (p. xiii), Adair's 
influence was
considerable. Adair's findings on these subjects 
commanded wide influence,
but even Yellin seems to acknowledge that the 
conclusions might be somewhat
mistaken. 

Again, the purpose of Adair's study was to uncover the 
political philosophy
of the Founding and to explain the American 
Constitution in light of that
theory. While Adair might have recognized divergent 
philosophic traditions
in America, he finally believed that the principal 
debate at the Founding
was a close cousin to the ancient conflict of regime 
types. With his focus
on classical political philosophy and on an ancient 
republicanism dominated
by competing claims to rule, Adair overlooked the 
modern quality of the
Founders' republicanism. Furthermore, the dominance of 
ancient categories in
his presentation was apparently encouraged by a genuine 
misreading of the
Virginia Plan at the Constitutional Convention. That 
error led him to
overemphasize David Hume's influence on James Madison's 
thought.

To be sure, Adair's errors were not total. He was 
absolutely correct to note
the centrality of republican concerns to the American 
Founders. Likewise,
one cannot read Hume's discussion of faction without 
concluding that it
impacted Madison's thinking. Yet Adair failed to 
understand a critical
aspect of American republicanism. In short, had he 
recognized the federal
concerns that dominated the Constitutional Convention 
and their relation to
the Founders' commitment to a certain type of 
republicanism, he might have
seen that the division of the legislature and the 
separation of powers was
something other than a manifestation of a compromise 
between the many and
the few. And with the concern over faction, one that 
led Adair to look to
Hume, superseded, he might have devoted more attention 
to Montesquieu's
influence on American constitutionalism.

Yellin initially soft-pedals Adair's focus on ancient 
republican influences,
claiming that he did recognize some differences between 
the republics of the
Americans and those of the ancients. Yellin writes, "it 
is possible to read
Adair as presenting two different types of 
republicanism" (p. xviii). He
claims that in Adair one finds the source of 
the "Republican Synthesis,"
which "does not offer a dichotomy of republicanism (or 
civic humanism)
versus liberalism, or Locke versus Machiavelli." Adair 
emphasized instead
the "complementary aspects of those traditions that 
come together in the
Founding generation" (p. xv). Yellin maintains that 
contemporary scholars
"would be well served" to reconsider Adair's work, "to 
find the ways in
which these allegedly separate and distinct traditions 
interpenetrate and
complement each other" (p. xvi).

Yet, on reading Adair, one feels that Yellin's 
presentation of it as a
"synthesis" of the tradition is generous, for liberal 
philosophy is
decidedly absent, and both the political science of 
republicanism and the
political theory of Aristotle are dominant. With his 
concluding statement,
even Yellin acknowledges that his earlier description 
of Adair as a moderate
in the liberal/republican debate was kind. His analysis 
of Adair-inspired
scholarship concludes with Paul Rahe's Republics 
Ancient and Modern, which
"rejects the notion of continuity between ancient and 
modern republicanism"
and argues for a "sharp discontinuity between them" (p. 
xx). In Yellin's
estimation, Rahe presents a serious challenge to Adair, 
who failed to "draw
a sharp theoretical distinction" between ancient and 
modern republicanism
(p. xx). 

This initial misappraisal of the political philosophy 
of the American
Founding encouraged Adair to exaggerate the philosophic 
differences between
the Founders and subsequently to mischaracterize the 
operation of their
political science. The extent of Adair's failings 
surfaces in his sixth
chapter, "The Extended Republic" (pp. 109-52), which 
explains the practical
application of the Founders' competing theories. There 
the Hamiltonian
aristocracy outlined in Chapter 5 and the Jeffersonian 
democracy of Chapters
2-4 collide at the Constitutional Convention. The 
resulting compromise of
principle required some theoretical justification. 
Madison's Federalist 10
provides it. Ultimately, Adair's analysis relies on an 
interpretation of
Madison's Virginia Plan that is simply wrong on one 
critical point. That
error works both forward and backward, causing Adair to 
misread both the
American mind prior to 1787 and the philosophic source 
of Madison's theory.

Contrary to Adair's findings, for the Founders the 
question was not which
group would rule, but how the rights of all could be 
protected when
republicanism, the only solution available seemed to 
fail. The Americans
believed that only republican government could reliably 
secure natural
rights, and that only republican government adequately 
reflected the natural
freedom of the individual citizen. This initial 
position led to further
problems and inquiries. Because republics are 
necessarily small, America
needed to federate in order to protect itself from 
external threats.
America's federal character created numerous 
difficulties, however. Most
immediately, the principle of state sovereignty made 
federations susceptible
to internal disintegration, and they could not reliably 
provide government
energetic enough to secure it from even the 
machinations of its own members,
much less from outside threats. Even more troubling, by 
1787 it was becoming
clear that republican government alone was not 
adequately securing justice
within the states themselves.

The mixed regime is a political fix for a society in 
which there are
competing claims to rule. In America, as represented by 
Jefferson and
Hamilton, there was no competition. For them and almost 
every Founder, the
proper source of power was the people alone, not some 
particular class.
Thus, the fix required by America was specifically 
related to its federal
character, and those issues dominated the debate at the 
Convention.

Adair concluded, however, that the Constitution was a 
compromise between
aristocrats and democrats. According to him, "the 
separation of the Senate
and the House which had always been the traditional 
guard of liberty, also
served after a little thought to satisfy those of the 
Fathers who were so
torn between the respective merits of the few and the 
many. Archaic elements
lifted from the ancient 'mixed governments' were woven 
into the very
structure of the new state" (pp. 118-19). Thus, the new 
Constitution, a
"bundle of compromises," represented a theoretical 
truce between those
promoting different classes within the regime (p. 119), 
and the compromise
was made possible by a flexible Virginia Plan and the 
creative theorizing of
its author, James Madison.

Yet the Virginia Plan was hardly the "malleable," 
compromise-ready, draft
Adair suggested (p. 118). Its driving focus was the 
creation of a new
national government that would deprive the states of 
agency in its new
institutions. The government of the Articles had been 
crippled through the
constitutionalizing of the principle of state 
sovereignty. Its Congress was
emasculated by the states through the selection of 
representatives, the
requirement of unanimity, the power to recall 
representatives, and a lack of
enforcement power over the represented bodies. To 
remedy this immediate
problem, one derivative of America's federal character, 
Madison devised a
scheme that would maintain the states, while creating a 
new government that
derived its power exclusively from the people. Every 
actor in that new
government would gain office either directly or 
indirectly from the people.

Adair claimed erroneously, however, that the Senate of 
the Virginia Plan
would be chosen by the state legislatures (p. 111). In 
fact, Madison's
principal goal was the creation of a new national 
government in which the
institutions would be derived exclusively from a people 
unmediated by the
state governments. The Great Compromise of July is 
better understood then
not as a "compromise" between different regime types, 
but as a setback for
those whose principal aim was the removal of the states 
from the national
government's institutions.

With that in mind, one finds that Adair's antagonists 
are, if not on the
same line, at least on the same page. His assessment of 
the Founding as a
debate between opposed class claims is thus undermined. 
Hamilton's distrust
of the people surely ran deeper than Madison's and 
Jefferson's. He wanted to
insulate the Senate and Presidency from popular 
opinion. Yet, for all of his
fear of the hoi polloi (p. 114), Hamilton never 
suggested that officers of
the national government should be chosen by any other 
than the people or
their immediate national representatives. For him, the 
ultimate source of
national power was never anything but the "demos" (p. 
115).

The greatest differences then between Hamilton and the 
Virginians were at
the practical rather than the theoretical level. While 
Jefferson and
Madison, in spite of the failures of the federal 
system, hoped to maintain
the states and limit the power of the national 
government through separated
powers, Hamilton sought to eliminate the states while 
unifying power at the
national level. In short, the central conflict between 
the Jeffersonian
Democrats and the Hamiltonian Federalists was not over 
the relative merits
of social classes, but in their approach to the pre-
existing states and to
the character of the reformed national authority. There 
was a serious
division at the Founding, but Adair did not fully 
identify it. The Founders
were primarily divided on the response to a problem 
caused by America's
federal character. 

By overlooking this critical aspect of the debate, 
Adair not only overstated
the classical elements of the American Founding, but he 
also improperly
identified the chief philosophical sources of Madison's 
thought. Adair
thought that Madison furnished a "theory" required by 
the Convention to
"justify" its compromises (p. 119). According to him, 
that theory is
articulated in Federalist 10. While the essay 
undoubtedly provides insights
into Madison's thought, Adair's analysis of it is 
questionable. He concludes
that it is largely Humean in origin, but while it is 
more than likely that
Madison's focus on the need to circumvent faction owed 
much to David Hume,
it is equally clear that his solutions were suggested 
by Montesquieu.

Adair correctly assumed that Madison's essay was 
his "most original
contribution to political theory" (p. 120), but he was 
wrong to conclude
that the theory was "noteworthy" for its attempt "to 
devise a new formula
which could be substituted for the weighty authority of 
the mixed monarchy
theorists" (p. 124). Adair argued that Madison simply 
made the aristocratic
attempt to protect the property rights of the few 
politically palatable with
his discovery that society is "pluralistic, not 
dualistic" (p. 121). In
other words, divisions between the rich and the poor 
would not generate
attacks against the rich because the poor were divided 
among themselves.
With this insight, Madison saw the "possibility of 
establishing a
commonwealth where the functional checks and balances 
in the very body of
society itself" would protect the few from the many (p. 
123).

In Adair's view, Federalist 10 explains how a single 
polity can overcome
faction through the promotion of a middling class that 
is itself divided,
and he turned to David Hume's "Idea of a Perfect 
Commonwealth" as the source
of Madison's insight. There Hume argues for the 
possibility of free
government on a large scale in which faction is 
overcome. Hume's concerns do
resonate with the interpretation of Federalist 10 
assumed by Adair. That
interpretation is lacking, however.

As argued earlier, Adair failed to see that Madison's 
principal concerns
were federal: how to create an energetic national power 
through a federation
of small states; and how to secure justice in the 
states without
overwhelming them. Madison's solution came in two 
parts. First, he would
emancipate the national government from the states. 
Second, he would permit
the national government to intervene in the states 
through a national veto
over state law that would help to promote justice in 
the small state
republics. Federalist 10 is best understood as an 
expression of that theory,
but it does not provide much insight into the 
Constitution, as the
Convention rejected both of Madison's proposals. The 
Constitution gave the
states a power over the national government through the 
election of
Senators, while depriving the national government of 
any hold on the states
themselves by rejecting Madison's proposal for a 
negative over state laws.

Thus, the political science of Federalist 10 does not 
provide a complete
answer to the question it poses. If one reads the essay 
without a full
appreciation of Madison's political science, it is easy 
to forget that the
problem identified by Madison at the outset of the 
essay is not actually
solved by the Constitution. Madison explains that the 
state republics failed
to secure justice for their citizens. How then will 
justice be secured
there? Madison's answer was through a universal 
negative over state law.
Without knowing this, however, one is led to conclude 
that Madison was a
nationalizer like Hamilton, and that his principal 
concern in Federalist 10
was the overcoming of faction in a large, unitary 
republic. Hume offers
himself then as the likely source of Madison's 
political science, for he had
no federal concerns. Rather, Hume hoped to 
establish "a" commonwealth, and
to reconcile factions in the mixed government of a 
unitary British system.

Given Madison's diagnosis of America's constitutional 
ills as federal in
origin, it seems logical to conclude that the primary 
source of his
constitutionalism is Montesquieu, not Hume. Montesquieu 
not only provided a
theory of separated powers that would take root in 
modified form in the new
national government, but he was concerned with 
precisely the problem Madison
identified in the Articles: that of energetic 
government in a federated
republic. Madison did not want to eliminate the states. 
Yet, how could a
federal union be powerful enough to protect against 
external threat and
internal rebellion? Moreover, how could a federal 
character be maintained
while securing the liberties of all? It is likely that 
Montesquieu, not
Hume, was Madison's principal companion as he sought 
answers to those
questions. 

Adair's history is admirable, for its explanation of 
the Founding pays
attention to both political theory and political 
practice, and he rightly
saw that the two reinforce one another in the 
Constitution. Adair's
conclusions, however, are somewhat off base. In his 
account, the debate at
the Founding was heavily mortgaged to ancient political 
theory. The primary
antagonists were the Democrat, Jefferson, and the 
Aristocrat, Hamilton.
Their opposed claims were reconciled in a compromise, 
theoretically
justified by Madison. Adair was right to see a conflict 
at the Founding, but
ultimately, it was not a conflict between regime types. 
Rather, it was
between different approaches to America's unique 
situation as a republican
federation committed to natural rights protection.

I am inclined to conclude that Adair's errors arise in 
part from his
underestimation of Madison. Yellin recognizes that for 
Adair there was "no
serious distinction between Jefferson and Madison in 
terms of political
theory" (p. xv). That is accurate, but Adair also seems 
to think that there
is no real difference between the Virginians' in terms 
of political
practice. He assumes that Madison is a Jeffersonian 
Democrat and that his
political science does little but offer a compromise 
between the advocates
of the few and the many. Had Adair recognized the 
theoretical insights of
Madison's political science, especially the advances 
made by the Founder's
analysis of federations, he might have had cause to 
reconsider his own
thesis of class division. He might have placed greater 
emphasis on the
influence of Montesquieu at the Founding. And finally, 
he might have arrived
at a fuller definition of Jeffersonian Democracy.


Copyright 2002 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net 
permits the
redistribution and reprinting of this work for 
nonprofit, educational
purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the 
author, web location,
date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: 
Humanities & Social
Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact 
the Reviews editorial
staff at hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.