Neither classical nor progressive but responsible-civic independence

Richard M. Reinsch II, in “Liberalism Properly Understood,”* asks:  What liberalism does this country propose? I think the proposition is neither classical liberty nor progressive liberty but responsible civic independence. The preamble to the U.S. Constitution proposes "liberty" to willing civic citizens for fellow citizens and posterity---their descendants and new legal immigrants. However, the events of 2020 inform "the good People" (Declaration of Independence) that too often "liberty" is taken as license to harm fellow citizens and their property or to be a soldier in someone else's violent politics.

Reinsch doubts that the preamble’s subordinate verbs--- form, establish, ensure, provide, promote, and secure---motivate “devotion across the generations.” However, show me the civic fellow citizen who does not want the six goals: integrity, justice, goodwill, defense, prosperity and liberty as independence.  Furthermore, any of the six verbs serves well for all six goals. I’d be satisfied to secure integrity, secure justice, secure goodwill, secure defense, secure prosperity and fsecure responsible-independence.

The proffered U.S. preamble is an individual’s agreement to collaborate for equity under statutory justice. Fellow citizens who reject collaboration for justice are not of the preamble’s subject, “We the People of the United States.” Dissidents to the U.S. preamble’s goals cannot attest to “in order to . . . do ordain and establish.” The articles and laws that come after the preamble either conform to the quest for justice or not. Laws that never aided justice either have-been or may-be amended.

Reinsch’s fervent arguments for Abraham Lincoln’s erroneous use of the Declaration of Independence to trump the U.S. Constitution seem revisionist. For instance, “philosophical, legal, and historical confidence . . . is in the ancient nature of the Constitution, rooted in the English constitutional tradition” seems erroneous at best. Despite English impositions, the suggestion that humans may establish equity under statutory law came from Pericles, 2,500 years ago. The power of the U.S. preamble to overcome British influence is original and was established in 1788, now only 232 years ago.

My history review would restore the preamble’s power, which Congress repressed in 1789. The reform from British tradition that is proposed by the U.S. preamble has been left to our generation so as to encourage our posterity---our grandchildren and their descendants.

The purpose of the 1774 war against England was to relieve the 13 eastern seaboard colonies, self-styled states, from the English government, a constitutional church-state partnership with a cooperative king. Revolution began with the liberation of Worcester, MA, September 6, 1774; http://www.revolution1774.org/. In 1781, France was the principal military power and strategist at Yorktown, VA. England surrendered and traveled to Paris to negotiate treaties. The treaty, ratified on January 14, 1784 by the thirteen free and independent states, names each state.

The states could not have survived as a confederation. The constitutional debates in Philadelphia inspired the committee of forms to express the political results in the preamble. The fact that its subject is “We the People of the United States” rather than “We the United States” is one of the reasons only 39 of 55 delegates signed the 1787 U.S. Constitution. Also, without delegates from Rhode Island, states’ unity could hardly be claimed. The preamble’s intentions to reserve rights to the people and their states are clarified in Federalist 84 by Alexander Hamilton:

Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain every thing they have no need of particular reservations. "WE, THE PEOPLE of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ORDAIN and ESTABLISH this Constitution for the United States of America." Here is a better recognition of popular rights, than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our State bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government.

Understandably, Hamilton perhaps took for granted the 1776 rebuttal to England: “We Representatives . . . do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.” However, he covered the point in reference to Magna Carta (1215) and England's Bill of Rights (1688), and "the good People" affirms that the U.S. Preamble intends to represent inhabitants who want responsible human independence. Just as every person may earn the opportunity to choose his or her food rather than accept a bureaucrat's imposition, each fellow citizen may collaborate for justice.

The wonder of the American proposition is freedom-from oppression so that each individual may responsibly pursue the happiness he or she wants rather than the dictates of fellow citizens or government. In other words, the preamble’s proposition is self-discipline for individual happiness with civic integrity.

After 232 years of neglect, it is time for fellow citizens to consider the civic, civil, and legal agreement that is offered to the individual including professors and politicians in the U.S. preamble. 

My interpretation just now is: this civic citizen practices and promotes 5 public disciplines---integrity, justice, peace, strength, and prosperity---so as to enjoy and encourage responsible human independence among fellow inhabitants. I express my view hoping readers will improve my way of living in the USA.

*National Affairs, Number 38, Winter 2019; https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/liberalism-properly-understood

Copyright©2019 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Edited 2/21/2019. Updated, July 19, 2020