Although 19th century “radicals” and utilitarians would call upon the Commonwealth Men as ancestors, this is false. The Commonwealth Men rejected utilitarian notions, and they believed in fundamental reform and purification of the constitution rather than the overthrow of the existing order. The American patriots, in fact, have the best claim to the legacy of the Commonwealth Men. One school of thought often ignored by professional historians is that of the Commonwealth Men. These were mostly non Puritans who were coming to grips with the events of the 17th century in England: the Civil War, the brief and intolerable Republic, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution. Certainly the Commonwealth Men were never totally unified, and they always represented a very small minority of English. But, all were men of letters, and they published frequently. So, importantly, their legacy lived well beyond their lives. They went by different names: Real Whigs, True Whigs, Commonwealth Men. The label “republican,” though accurate, would prove too radical, as it might seem treasonous to their fellow English. In England, especially after Cromwell, “republican” had come to mean “anti-monarchical.” Most Commonwealth Men, though, were not anti-monarchical. They simply desired to keep the monarch in check and the government in balance. Tacitus described how the Saxons chose their kings and generals, how they restricted the authority of those they set up to rule, how frequent assemblies were held for discussion of tribal affairs. ‘About matters of higher consequence,’ Tacitus wrote, ‘the whole nation deliberates,’ and at regular intervals there were conventions in which the people drafted their own laws. The nemesis of Saxon liberties was feudalism, generally held to have been introduced into England by William ‘the accursed Norman’ in 1066. Hence the idea of a ‘Norman Yoke.” The conquest deprived Englishmen of their liberty, established the tyranny of an alien king and landlords, and replaced the Saxon militia of Alfred’s time with the odious form of holding land of the King in return for military service. The Magna Carta of 1215, in the Whig mind, especially reaffirmed the ancient, pre-Norman traditions of liberty and common law in the western, classical, and Anglo-Saxon tradition. Overall, the Commonwealth Men embraced five major ideas as true. 1. Natural Rights–but existed a serious divide among the Commonwealth Men: whether natural rights were universal or only for Englishmen. But, all agreed that Englishmen had natural rights–and these applied equally to those who lived at home or abroad in the colonies. 2. Reform would almost always prove better than revolution, as revolution tends to destroy too much of the past. Instead, the duty of a real Englishman was to preserve, purify, and augment the checks and balances of the Constitution. 3. The Commonwealth Men embraced the “Gothic” constitution of England, believing it to be, in Hayek’s understanding, a part of the ommon law, evolutionary, and non-systematic. Men discovered (importantly, did NOT create) it through history and through trial and error. Bruce Frohnen, has argued: Englishmen “sought to maintain a political structure based on local rule and providing only limited, derivative authority to central political institutions. The freedom of local communities to arrange their lives in common with relatively little interference from the central government was considered crucial, important enough to spark rebellion when violated by either King or Parliament. Historically, rebellions tended to succeed more often in England than on the continent. 4. Believed greatly in individual liberty and dignity, especially in matters of conscience. This included religious tolerance for “Jews, Atheists, Unitarians, and Mohammedans.” But, only for “well-behaved Catholics,” as Robbins has argued. While certainly not believing in radical equality, the Commonwealth Men argued for “the equality of man before God.” 5. Only virtue would allow a society to survive. Drawing heavily upon the thought and history of Livy, the Commonwealth Men believed that luxury led to self-absorption, pursuit of self-interest and effeminated men.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 00:55:38 +0000
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