A Study On The Federalist Political Philosophy

As the first to look at the political philosophy of the elite group of people during the period of American Revolution known as the Federalists from a philosophical perspective, this dissertation is innovative and original in its choice of topic. None of The Declaration of Independence, The United States Constitution or The Federalist Papers was the product of individual heroism; their authors have different levels of group branding, and the collective power of the Founding Fathers in developing the Constitution and establishing the nation left a collective intellectual legacy. Therefore, compared to studying the characters of individuals in this group of people, a wholesome study of the entire group would perhaps allow us to better grasp the main features and developing history of Federalist ideals.Chapter 1It is fundamentally important for this dissertation to analyze the concept of Federalists and Federalist political philosophy.Firstly, the concept of Federalists in this dissertation is based on Federalism and takes the Federal Party and Anti-Federalists as a reference. Federalists, in the last century, were translated mistakenly as the Federal Party Members. The mistake lies in the mixing up of Federalists, a collective group of thought, and the political party namely the Federal Party that came into being later in history. This is not only inconsistent with historical fact, but is also contradictory to the Federalists belief that political parties are synonyms of patronage and vicious competition, leading to bigger misunderstandings or even misinterpretations. Federalists took a bold and unprecedented political experiment in the United States, upholding the concept and ideals of Federalism and advocating the Federalist system of government, became the representatives of the American Revolution, and were revered by people of the world. Their rivals, Anti-Federalists, differed dramatically from the Federalists in ideals and values. The focus of the disagreement was mainly due to the Federalist belief that the Federal government power is higher than State government power, and Federalists wanted to change the fact that the Federal government had no true sovereignty during the Confederation. Anti-Federalists had opposed any fundamental change in the political system, stressing that the power of states was higher than the power of the federal government. But in terms of patriotism and loyalty to their country, they were no different. Therefore, the Federalists were not the only beneficiaries of the debate between themselves and Anti-Federalists, for the truth becomes clearer through debate; the country of America and its people benefited from this clash of wisdom. The U.S. Constitution, a product of such contest and compromise, became the world’s most stable and longest-serving written law, which is still playing a huge role in American society as a result of this. This is why while affirming the great contribution of the Federalists, no one can deny the "unknown" contribution made by the Anti-Federalists.Secondly, the Federalist political philosophy is a political philosophy with distinct characteristics of that era and pragmatic quality. It follows the tradition of 18th Century political philosophy and responds practically to the political problems of the times, focusing not only on the elaboration of theory but also more on the thoughts and responses to the reality. Federalists designed, developed and arranged the political system and power agencies of the United States according to their belief and pursuit of political value, and from basic questions such as the sources of political power, the belonging of sovereignty, the construction of government institutions, the assignment and supervision of powers, and the definition of the highest value of politics, they responded to the bigger questions arisen from the era such as the fundamental essence and value of politics, the legitimacy and rationality of a nation, and the composition and structure of power, etc. The biggest feature of the political philosophy of the Federalists is its unity of theory and practice, giving it a unique value in the history of political philosophy. Behind the scrupulous examination of institutional details of the Federalists is their profound concern for political philosophy. Core vocabulary such as "rationality" and "experience" frequently appear in the works of Federalists. The relations between humanity and politics, freedom and happiness, freedom and democracy, individual citizens and the state, citizen and citizen, democratic national sovereignty and the diversity of local autonomy, and the nature of political power, balance and protection of rights, and even contemporary issues and interests of future generations were their main concerns. The considerations of these questions along with the constitution of the system make up the main content of Federalist political philosophy, in which human nature is the logical starting point, liberty and happiness is the purpose and the ultimate value, system of government is the subject and rights theory is the core.Chapter 2Federalist political philosophy has profound origins of thought, embodying the value and divine guidelines of religious thought and the methodological guiding philosophy of rationalism and empiricism.First and foremost, Protestantism, in particular Calvinism, influenced Federalist philosophy. Although the religious backgrounds of representatives in the Constituent Convention were multivariate, the majority was Calvinism. Though thorough deliberation we found that even Madison and Hamilton who participated in the activities of the Anglican Church, had thoughts that belonged to Calvinism. In the Calvinist concept of "original sin "and "hope of redemption", the "covenant" concept, the concept of limited government, the emphasis on the law of the Bible, the concept of priesthood of all believers and the Puritan work ethic had a great impact on the American Constitution and developing the nation. Taking James Witherspoon, Madison and Hamilton as representatives, this dissertation, argues for a close relationship between Calvinism’s doctrine and the Federalists’ ideals of a constitution.Secondly, as the representatives of European rationalism of modern philosophy, Locke and Montesquieu have had a profound impact on Federalists. The Federalist constitutional doctrine of the United States fully absorbed the political philosophy of Locke as below:First, natural law and the views of natural rights; Second, the views that political power originated in the consent of free man and the purpose of protecting the natural rights of individuals; Third, separation of the legislative, executive and diplomatic powers; Fourth, the ideas of religious freedom and religious tolerance. Locke’s theory of separation of power was to be further developed by the French philosopher Montesquieu’s theory of separation and checks and balances of three power, including why and how to utilize checks and balances to protect individual freedom. Another contribution of Montesquieu’s political philosophy to Federalist was his discussion of the Federate Republic, which is not only repeatedly cited by Federalist but also directly applied to the Federalist constitutional practice.Thirdly, although the political philosophy of rationalism can solve the problem of political legitimacy for the constitution, it cannot solve the problem of political effectiveness (including the feasibility of constitutional system in the actual political operation, reliability and efficiency of government, etc.). It was necessary to get out of the restriction of rationalism, and on this issue, it was David Hume who greatly inspired the Federalists. Unlike Locke, Hume emphasized the interests and needs of people and the natural state, negating the necessity of "contract". From a stand point of self-love humanity, he put forward the famous "rogue hypothesis" and discussed the basis of human nature in faction. He also noted that the concept of a large republic was not only realistic, it was correct, and he then debated the various advantages of a large republic. Hume’s "rogue hypothesis", the theory of faction and the theory of a great republic, provided an effective way of thought to Federalists in incorporating Montesquieu’s separation of three powers to their own constitutional system.Chapter 3Federalists’ views on human nature and the relations between politics and human nature constitute the basis and starting point of their entire logic of political philosophy. Specifically, this includes two aspects:The first is the "original sin" and the political and legal mechanism to control sin. From Paul to Augustine and then to Calvinism, it had been assumed that people cannot get rid of the original human sin on their own, and can only rely on faith in the grace of God or belief for Jesus Christ to return to this world and salvation for all. The Christian beliefs of Federalists gave them profound realization on human sin both in theory and in practice. The existence of original sin renders all people and all their choices imperfect. In political life, the choice of the fallen man cannot be the perfect good; it can only shift between the worst possibility and the other less bad possibilities. Accordingly, the choice of the political system is not built on the assumption of human virtue; on the contrary, it is based on precaution and control of original sin. Madison has a famous saying that goes, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." they believed that Faction was rooted in the original sin of human nature, thus inevitable and can only be controlled.The second is the relationship between natural law, natural rights and freedom and equality. The Declaration of Independence, for the first time in human history, announced the concept of inalienable natural rights and human’s born equality in the form of a political declaration. For political philosophy, the truth of "all men are created equal" is that no person has the right to dominate over others without the consent of said others. Therefore, the rational foundation of political power results from the consent and authorization of individual citizens in the political society. For Federalists, the acceptable government must be the result of the transfer of the natural rights of citizens. When political power has become a violation of the people’s rights and the antithesis of the people, the people have the right to overthrow this political power and form a new political society.The combination of the two aspects composes a unique characteristic of Federalist thoughts.Chapter 4The theory of government system constitutes the main part of Federalist political philosophy. From the stand point of both protection of the rights of individual liberty and precaution of human sin, Federalists developed Montesquieu’s separation of powers and checks and balances into a detailed and systematic operational theory and established a political system from free elections, unprecedented in human history.Looking at the purpose of government, the Federalist system of a free government, a large representative Republic, is an autonomous political system, namely a self-managing, self-governing, and self-ruling political system intending to protect freedom and rights of the people. Autonomy of the people remains the key of a large representative Republic, and it is also the differentiation between a large representative Republic and an autarchy. According to Isaiah Berlin’s theory of positive liberty and negative liberty, negative liberty is higher than positive freedom for the Federalists.From the point of view of government characteristics, government is the agency in which the people entrust their rights. Political power comes from civil authority, and because the rights of the people are divine, the country’s federal political power is divine.There are two precautions in the government system; one is to prevent evil of people, and the other to guard against evil of politicians. To this end, Federalists put great emphasis on preventing with tyranny of the majority on the minority and advocated setting appropriate mechanisms decentralizing political power to prevent dictatorship.For Federalists, the ideal political system of government for Federalists was the new Federalism, which advocates a powerful establishment of government but not powerful enough to endanger the freedom and rights of citizens. To achieve such a goal, they fully demonstrated the necessity of a strong federal government, urging the confederation to morph into a federation. Federalists were in favor of establishing a government with actual sovereignty and a new Compound Republic that combined federal sovereignty with state sovereignty.Federalists advocated for optimization of government structure and the implementation of separation of powers as well as checks and balances. Based on vigilance of the human nature of corruption in political power, Federalist believed in independent powers restricting each other. They created a presidential system for the first time in history, gave constitutional right to judicial review, insisted that the legislative power may not be transferred, and created different representative systems in the Senate and House of representatives. Stressing the importance of independence of three powers, but also by setting checks and balances to prevent the improper use of power, the Federalist system went beyond the previous checks and balances, and has great innovative significance and theoretical contributions.Finally, it should be noted that checks and balances of the federal political structure can be seen with the implication of "elitism". However, the key of U.S. federal politics is not elite politics, but as second President John Adams said, it is moral politics. This checks and balances system was based on religious and moral foundations. In this political structure of mutual restrictions and constraints, all powers remain in control of discretion, and the use of discretion will be dependent on the user’s virtue and wisdom. Therefore, the support or guidance of civic virtue and political virtue lies behind the pattern of restraint and countering of powers.Chapter 5The theory of civil rights is the essence and core of Federalists’ political philosophy. Federalists believed that maintaining the individual citizen’s life, liberty, and property was the fundamental purpose of politics. Although the Congressional veto of George Mason proposal of a bill of rights by the Constitutional Convention had its reasons, the writer of this dissertation thinks that this is a major historical mistake, which was amended by later Federalist remedial effort. One example of such effort was Madison drafting the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. Subsequently, rights began to be extensively protected by the Constitution. Due to the limited length of this dissertation, the writer selected the most pragmatically significant and urgent property rights and the right of religious liberty as examples to demonstrate the thesis. In a sense, the right of self-defense and liberty of speech are derived from the formerly mentioned rights.Same as John Locke, the Federalists believed property rights were fundamental characteristics belonging to man. They thought that property rights were important protections for individual liberty and safety. Deprived of property rights, the individual’s freedom and safety would be entirely empty, regardless of how much property he was able to maintain or how he utilized the property. A government that did not protect property rights is never a legitimate government. Therefore, Federalists maintained that the purpose of government was to protect the individual rights of citizens based on protection of property rights. They realized that establishing a political and legal system that cherished property rights of the people would give the federal government certain characteristics and value dramatically different from the previous forms of government. Federalists accepted Locke’s theory that property rights were a natural right, also implementing Hume’s idea that property rights were an impartial rule of law and political systems in their legislative practice. In the Constitution and its amendments, there are detailed explanations of interpretation of the law and regulations of the relevant provisions of the expropriation of property, damages and compensation.The emergence of religious liberty was the result of Americans learning from history and many cases of religious persecution in reality, and it was affected by Locke’s ideas of religious tolerance. When Madison discussed property rights in his works, he affirmed that religious freedom should be considered as people’s property. This means that religious liberty was an inalienable natural right given by God. The Government should protect religious freedom of the individual the same way it protects property rights of the individual, because conscience is the most sacred possession of all individuals. Federalists explicitly separated political power, especially violence, and religion, firmly opposing secular political power interfering with religious freedom. Thomas Jefferson wrote a more elaborated explanation about religious freedom in his "Virginia Religious Freedom Act", three years after the Declaration of Independence. In the ideology of Madison, Christianity does not truly function on the support of the government. People only give political power to the government; the government does not have religious authority. It can be seen that the Federalists term of religious liberty was utilized neither to lower the position of Christianity nor to give up on Christian, but it was utilized to maintain a more positive social role of Christianity. If one does not understand the significance of Christianity in American society, there is no way to really understand American society. Similarly, if one does not understand the importance of Federalist policies of religious freedom towards Christianity, there is no way to truly understand America Christianity.Finally, in an attempt to summarize and deepen the research topic, this dissertation makes a concise analysis of the significance, contribution and limitation of Federalists’ political philosophy in the conclusion.