The Founding of the American Republic 4; C. Carson

This is a prelude to making a case for the study of history to my classes. The point is that it is quite costly to learn by personal experience, while it is much less expensive to learn from the ex perience of others. Actually, however, the case for vicarious historical versus per sonal experience is not as con clusive as I tend to make it. Per sonal experience usually makes a much stronger and lasting im pression than do accounts of the experience of others. Any retell ing of an experience is to a large extent an abstraction which leaves out the warp and woof of life. The difference between vicarious and personal experience is quite often like the difference between travel folders of an area and the actual Dr. Carson is Chairman. Social Science De partment, Okaloosa-Walton College. He is a noted lecturer and author, his latest book en titled Throttling the Railroads. 667 668 THE FREEMAN November vacation experience - a chasm of considerable dimensions. Still, there is much that has to be learned, if it is to be learned at all, from the experiences of others because of the limi ted career of an individual and because some things - e. g., drowning - are likely to be· experienced only once, and all experience ceases.

Political experience - both vi carious and personal - is of .par ticular urgency for those who would erect governments and gov ern. This is so because govern ment is both essential and poten tially man's most dangerous instrument, most dangerous be cause it can muster all other in struments and bring them to bear in the pursuit of whatever end those who govern may have. Gov ernment is that body charged with the monopoly of the use of force in a given jurisdiction. Politics is the arena of contest over who shall employ the force for what ends. Each of us is prey to the notion that if we had power we would exercise it only for the good of those who fell within our jurisdiction. Without experience, we can easily concoct plans whose fulfillment we would achieve if we could get the reins of power. The plans may have all the beauty of any abstraction, but they usu ally ignore the reality of the con...

test of wills by which power is actually gained and exercised, con tests in which the man with a vision imputes evil to those of a different view, seeks power at first for the good he would do, then seeks power because he thinks he is good, and eventually seeks power for itself alone. There is a human tendency for anyone in power to concentrate it in his hands and absolutize it. Constraints Upon Power There is, however, a counter tendency at work in most govern ments at most times. It arises, in the first place, out of the difficulty which any ruler experiences of putting into effect personally his edicts. Authority must be parceled out. Those who exercise it incline to arrogate to themselves that particular authority. Moreover, it is easier to do anything if it is made into a routine. Routines be come customs, and customs as sume the character of law in the course of time. Hence, power is balanced and constrained to some extent and as a rule at most times and in most places. This can be prevented from happening only by relentless terror, a terror of a kind which is unusual.

Political experience is experi ence of the contest of many wills, of routine and custom become law, of devices by which power is con strained, of compromise, of the 1971 THE COLONIAL POLITICAL EXPERIENCE 669 gap between conception •and exe cution because both those who rule and those who are ruled have wills. A. deep reading of history may acquaint one with these proc esses and actualities; personal ex perience will be even more likely to do so. Americans in the colonies had a goodly amount of political experi ence before they broke from Eng land, experience with the uses and abuses of power. They had it in what is probably the best way to gain experience with the use of power; the power at their disposal was limited and constrained. The colonists gained experience within the confines of the English con stitution, in the first place. Their laws were supposed to conform to those of England. To make sure that they did, the system provided that court cases could be appealed to the Privy Council in England.

Restrictive Charters The colonists were restricted in what they could do also by their charters. Most of the colonies had originally been founded as com mercial ventures, though a few were founded as proprietaries which harked back to the feudal system for models, and one - Geor 'gia - was a trust. In any case, they were founded on the basis of charters. These spelled out the territory to be occupied, the financial arrangements, and the rights and privileges of the settlers. Or dinarily, the settlers were per mitted to participate in the mak ing of laws, and such laws as were passed had to be in keeping with and not contrary to English law. It would be correct to say that the colonists were both' restrained and enfranchised by their charters. The colonies were restricted also in that they were a part of the British Empire. In that ca pacity, they fell under the author ity of the government of England (after 1707, the United Kingdom) and were subject to certain of the acts of the Crownin-Parliament.

Before discussing this relation ship, however, it will be useful to note some major changes that had occurred in the English govern ment in the last years of the seventeenth century, the changes associated with the Glorious Rev olution. These changes raised questions about· the extent of par liamentary authority over the col onies under the constitution as it had developed, questions that were not finally pushed to the point of irreconcilable contradiction until the 1770's. At the time when most of the colonies were chartered and founded, England was more or less of an absolute monarchy. Parlia ment was, for the Tudors and the 670 THE FREEMAN November early Stuarts, an auxiliary to them in the exercise of their power. In theory, and usually in practice, Parliament was that body which enabled the monarch to make al terations from time to time in the contract with his subjects whom he ruled by Divine right. Ordinar ily, he could and did rule without consultations with Parliament. If some change were wanted by the monarch - e. g., a new tax meas ure - then he might call a session in order to get the needed legisla tion. If he could get by on es tablished revenues and laws, he had usually foregone the nuisance of having Parliament meet.

The Stuart Kings and Parlia ment were at odds for most of the seventeenth century over their re spective powers. The issues were resolved by the Glorious Revolu tion and its aftermath, resolved in favor of Parliament. As one his torian summarizes the conse quences of this Revolution, it "de molished the doctrine of the divine right of kings. . . . After that momentous victory Parliament slowly and gradually, yet remorse lessly and irresistibly, extended its power in all directions."! An other sums up the changes this way: 1 Curtis P. Nettels, The Roots of Amer ican Civilization (New York: Appleton Century-Crofts, 1963, 2nd ed.), p. 543. William III began his reign with a clear recognition on his part that the royal office had been shorn of exten sive powers. As it has been expressed by a distinguished historian of the constitution: "The king was distinct hT below statute; he was to have no power to suspend statutes or to dis pense with statutes; he could not by his proclamations create any new of fence; he could not keep a standing army in the realm in time of peace without the consent of parliament; parliament had begun to appropriate supplies; the military tenures were gone; he had no powers of purvey ance and preemption; he could not try men by martial law; the judges were no longer to hold office during hj/:) good pleasure .... " We may add: he could make no laws without the consent of the nation's representa tives; he could lay no taxes; he could claim no kingship by divine right .... 2 In short, Parliament had come to occupy much of the ground for merly held by the monarch and would in the course of the eight eenth century gain much more control over affairs. England had a constitutional monarchy.

Parliamentary Powers These changes affected Ameri cans in two most important ways. One of them is that Parliament's powers were neither clear ly de2 George B. Adams, Constitutional His tory of England, Rev. by Robert L. Schuyler (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), p. 366.