Assignment Prompt & Instructions
see attached
**files (5)**
– ## DiscussionCaseStudyAssignmentInstructions1.docx
– ## StatesmanshipReconsidered.pdf
– FranklinsClassicalAmericanStatesmanship.pdf
– JofSupremeCourtHistory-2018-Burns-ChiefJusticeasChiefExecutiveTaftsJudicialStatesmanship.pdf
– Readpages42to51.pdf
**## DiscussionCaseStudyAssignmentInstructions1.docx**
PADM 700
**Discussion: Case Study Assignment Instructions**
Students will take part in 4 Discussions in which you will conduct a case study of an observed study in a public administration context. The analysis will be based upon the concepts you learned and discussed in the previous module’s essay assignment, writing 450-500 words in the initial thread. For the case study, students are welcome to cite a scholarly source, but if they do, it must not be merely a theoretical/philosophical discussion. Instead, whatever source is used for the actual case study must focus on
_a real-world public administration situation that is being discussed and analyzed in the chosen articl_ e. Students will in turn apply concepts discussed in the previous Module: Week’s essay to analyze the situation, in addition to the required reading and presentations from the current Module: Week. Remember: it will be important to do both!
Then, students will post replies of 200–250 words each to 2 classmates’ threads. Each reply must be unique and must integrate ideas (and citations) from the required reading. Reply comments must engage the case study observations made by classmates and must bring to light concepts from the required reading from the current Module: Week as well as additional reading. Thus, merely posting the same reply in 3 places is not sufficient and may be treated as a form of academic misconduct. The original thread must incorporate ideas and citations from all the required readings and presentations for that Module: Week in addition research from two scholarly sources. The reply posts must also integrate ideas and citations from the required readings and presentations for the Module: Week, as appropriate, and at least two scholarly sources.
·
**Thread:**
· 450-500 words
· Ideas and citations from
**_all_** the required reading and presentations from the Module: Week
· Ideas and citations from two scholarly sources
· Case Study of a real public administration situation related to the concepts discussed in the prior week.
In this course, Discussions play an exceptionally important role. Consider these threads and replies to be formal communications on the same level as those you would conduct with employers, clients, or colleagues in the professional, political, or academic world. As such, they must be free of grammatical errors, must be properly formatted in current APA style, and must consist of well-reasoned, contemplative, and substantive posts and replies, rather than mere ipse dixit. These threads and replies must be adequately supported by citations of the sources or support for your ideas as well as any quoted materials.
Page 1 of 2
**## StatesmanshipReconsidered.pdf**
Perspectives on Political Science
ISSN: 1045-7097 (Print) 1930-5478 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/vpps20
Statesmanship Reconsidered
Richard S. Ruderman
To cite this article: Richard S. Ruderman (2012) Statesmanship Reconsidered, Perspectives on
Political Science, 41:2, 86-89, DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2012.660841
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10457097.2012.660841
Published online: 09 Apr 2012.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 6357
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Perspectives on Political Science, 41:86–89, 2012
Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1045-7097 print / 1930-5478 online
DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2012.660841
Statesmanship Reconsidered
RICHARD S. RUDERMAN
Abstract: Statesmanship can be exercised in a variety of
situations, not all of which involve sitting in the Executive
Office. This response examines three of the most impressive
American efforts at statesmanship—that of Madison in his
capacity as Founder (on how best to secure rights), Franklin
as author of a new American Way of life (based on virtues
freed from religious seriousness), and Lincoln as theorist
of a political morality. All three examples, I argue, provide
evidence that a statesman is more than just a politician who
has been dead for some time.
Keywords: statesmanship, Bill of Rights, James Madison,
Benjamin Franklin, way of life, Abraham Lincoln, William
Shakespeare
W
ith a refreshing breadth of vision, the
three articles under consideration do not
limit their definition of statesmanship to
the amusing but perhaps too cynical re-
mark of Harry Truman: a statesman is a
politician who’s been dead for a while.
Only Rafael Major considers as a statesman an actual Amer-
ican President, Abraham Lincoln; Jeremy Bailey examines
James Madison not as President but as a Founder, chiefly
with an eye toward the proper place of a Bill of Rights within
a liberal constitutional framework, and Christopher Bald-
win examines Benjamin Franklin, not with respect to any
political act proper but rather as an author (through his Auto-
biography) of something like the new American way of life.
Statesmanship, according to all three of our authors, then,
is to be understood as a pedagogic or even architectonic art
that, in Baldwin’s words, seeks “to shape not only American
political institutions, but also and especially the character and
way of life of [their] fellow citizens” (Baldwin, 3).
According to all three authors, liberal democracy cannot
be understood as a political regime indifferent to the way(s)
Richard S. Ruderman is Associate Professor and Chair, De-
partment of Political Science at the University of North Texas.
of life of its citizens. Even the best engineered political insti-
tutions will, of themselves, neither produce healthy citizens
nor be sustained by the indiscriminate production of any and
all human types. Liberal democracies require, for their main-
tenance and health, liberal democratic citizens. And such
citizens, with apologies to Shakespeare, are neither born lib-
eral democrats, nor can have liberal democratic sentiments
thrust upon them: they must achieve the character of liberal
democrats.
Let us first examine Bailey’s account of James Madison,
the statesman as founder. Bailey focuses on the question of
Madison’s puzzling and controversial volte face with respect
to a Bill of Rights: as he says, “Madison was against the Bill
of Rights before he was for it” (Bailey, 2). That is, Madison
began from the Federalist position that including a written
Bill of Rights within the Constitution would likely be dam-
aging to the cause of liberal democracy. As Bailey points
out, this view comes not from the crabbed perspective of a
doubter, unwilling to extend to citizens their rights. Rather,
it arises from a concern that, by listing some rights, the in-
evitably damaging conclusion would be drawn that there
were no others to be retained or exercised. The Federalist
case against a Bill of Rights, initially supported by Madison,
amounts to a reliance on two articles of faith: first, that “the
Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every
useful purpose, a Bill of Rights” (Federalist #84), that is,
faith that the structure of republican government itself, filter-
ing out the indulgent (and oppressive) passions of the people
through the mechanism of representation will ensure that the
ambitious defense of the people’s rights can be counted on
to “counter” any ambitious efforts to restrict them; and sec-
ond, that the people can be expected, even in the absence of
any hortatory effort on the part of government, to recognize,
exercise, and seek to defend their rights.
Over time, Madison might appear to have begun to en-
tertain doubts about each of these articles of faith, in par-
ticular the latter. However adept at channeling majority sen-
timent the Constitution might prove to be, there remained
reasons to fear that, on some occasions, even constitutional
majorities would need to be restrained. And to do that (at
86
April–June 2012, Volume 41, Number 2 87
some future moment of crisis or heightened anger), Madi-
son seems to have concluded, some force “more powerful
than any majority” (as Bailey quotes Goldwin, p. 4) would
have to be inserted into the Constitution. The statesman-as-
founder sought to arm all future statesmen with a weapon
they could ill afford to do without in sometimes doing battle
with majorities, especially in the states (where, according to
the “layer-cake” view of federalism prevalent at the founding,
the authority of the national government did not extend). But
much more, one could educate, via a Bill of Rights, all future
majorities to respect their own limitations. Public opinion
could be kept squarely on the side of individual rights. (This
is particularly important, Bailey suggests, insofar as Madi-
son may have been an opponent of judicial review, the notion
that the “least powerful branch” could—or even had the right
to—enforce individual rights against majority sentiment.)
Madison, then, became a respectful critic of public opin-
ion. He knew, perhaps better than any other Founder, the
need to work with and even placate public opinion. But he
also knew that public opinion could and should be educable.
(The latter involved overcoming a certain earlier distaste on
Madison’s part for giving a “harangue”—p. 10.) According
to this reading of his reversal, Madison became, one might
say, a Lincoln avant la lettre.
As Bailey points out, the most essential component of
Madison’s change of heart is his changed understanding of
“opinion” and its role in democratic government. Madison’s
ambivalence concerning opinion (he first omits, and then
includes it as a cause, along with “passion and interest,” of
faction in Federalist #10) seems to resolve itself into his final
view (expressed in a 1788 letter to Jefferson) that opinion, if
educated, can “mitigate the [true] causes of faction, passion
and interest” (Bailey, 20). This would mean, as Bailey notes,
Madison is in this crucial respect closer to Jefferson than is
commonly recognized: both men feared that the people, in
the absence of a continuing political education in the meaning
of rights, would tend to sacrifice them for their interests (23).
Ultimately, however, Bailey prefers the more practical po-
litical reasons that Madison may have had both for initially
objecting to a Bill of Rights and eventually for acquiescing in
it. Initially, his opposition arose from his desire to avoid at all
costs a second convention that would, no doubt, open up other
cans of worms that would destroy the delicate agreement se-
cured at the first. And Madison may have then come to accept
the inclusion of a Bill of Rights chiefly in order to increase
the prospects of ratification. Most of all, he seems finally to
have doubted the educative power of a Bill of Rights: outside
of the private letter to Jefferson (in France at the time), Madi-
son appears not to have advanced the argument at all. Bailey
concludes that Madison may have been consistent through-
out his career in his recognition of the imperfections of the
Constitution, but there was no clear unity in his treatment
of them. He hoped to secure a place for both future delib-
eration and judgment, unconstrained by strict constitutional
strictures, and future veneration of the Constitution as a com-
pact not to be altered. Madison’s ambivalence mirrors that
of statesmanship as such: it must sometimes conserve and
other times innovate, but each aspect of statesmanship risks
undermining the other.
Christopher Baldwin classifies Franklin’s literary efforts
to limn a “new character and way of life” for Americans as
an instance of “classical” American statesmanship. On the
one hand, “classical” statesmanship need not be exercised
from political office and, on the other, concerns itself with a
far more fundamental issue than “who gets what, when, and
how.” If there was an American Founder who believed that
the Constitution was a “machine that would run of itself,”
Franklin was not that man. In order to succeed, America
would have to be populated by citizens still dedicated to
virtue, albeit a virtue of an altogether new sort. To that end,
Franklin sought to “shape” his fellow citizens’ “moral opin-
ions and character” (Baldwin, 5).
Baldwin devotes considerable attention to the rhetorical
manner by which Franklin proceeds. It can be character-
ized as the polar opposite of that utilized by Cotton Mather.
Charming instead of hectoring, insinuating where the latter
was blunt, Franklin’s every remark serves to invite his read-
ers to look at this world as a place of promise and possibility,
rather than as a fallen one within whose crevices nothing
but enticement to sin can be found. As though adding a new
“Life” to the pages of Plutarch (a book he avidly read as a
boy), Franklin advances most of his moral lessons through
his portrayal, in his Autobiography, of his own life. The over-
arching lesson seems to be that, from humble circumstances,
anyone can rise to a useful and comfortable station in a lib-
eral democracy. To do so, however, requires that one learn to
run away, not from home, so much as from “the ideas of the
Old World” (Baldwin, 8).
Chief among those “old” ideas is “religious seriousness.”
As a young man, Franklin tried his hand at refuting the basis
of religion by writing and publishing “A Dissertation on
Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.” For his troubles,
Franklin began to be pointed at “with horror.” From this, says
Baldwin, Franklin learned not to reconsider his own ideas
but, rather, not to express them publicly. Rather than attack
religion for its falseness, Franklin turned to defending it for
its utility. But, says Baldwin, this manner of defense might
be the most effectual way to bring his readers to “take the
question of religion’s truth less seriously than the question
of its utility” (Baldwin, 10). Franklin then draws out the
political ramifications of this shift in perspective. While a
True religion cannot abide dissenters, a “useful” one can
“tolerate” and even encourage others that, true or not, can
assist people in becoming better people and better citizens.
Franklin opposes religious seriousness in part because
it feeds and is fed by moral seriousness. And moral
seriousness—in the sense of unwavering devotion to a prin-
ciple, come what may—is “foolish at best and hypocritical at
worst” in political life (Baldwin, 12). Preparing the way for
such events as Frederick Douglass’s later break with William
Lloyd Garrison, Franklin elevates the “ethics of responsibil-
ity” (as Max Weber was later to call it) over the “ethics of
intention.”
As though it followed in principle from his break
with religious and moral seriousness, Franklin went on
to encourage free-thinking. But Baldwin is careful to
note that Franklin does not thereby dismiss morality as
such. In fact, in response to his having viewed a woman
88 Perspectives on Political Science
in England try—and fail—to achieve the kind of moral
perfection promoted by Christianity (the celibate life of a
nun), Franklin endeavored the “bold and arduous project”
of achieving moral perfection himself. Far from imitating
the Englishwoman’s efforts, however, Franklin gave an alto-
gether this-worldly cast to them: he sought to put her frugality
to use, not in the introspection that leads to the uncovering of
sin, but in the businesslike self-discipline needed to achieve
this-worldly deferred success. His reorientation of virtue
notwithstanding, Franklin too proved incapable of attaining
moral perfection. But he responds to that failure, without
a trace of guilt, by observing he was at least better off for
having made the effort. He even entertains the thought that
imperfect morals may lead to greater enjoyment and success
in this world. Franklin’s new morality is forgiving, somewhat
improvisational, democratic, and egalitarian. It does not
ask us to be “saints or classical heroes” (Baldwin, 17).
He rejects some classical virtues (courage), utterly reinter-
prets some Biblical ones (sexual intercourse need not be
strictly linked to the propagation of offspring), and connects
most of the remaining ones to the securing—rather than the
distributing or renouncing—of wealth.
Baldwin’s most important observation, however, is that
none of this means Franklin practiced or preached a moral
laxity, equating “virtue with whatever is in our long-term,
enlightened self-interest in this world” (Baldwin, 19). This is,
in part, because Franklin recognized that he could not rectify
two of the five “errata” he owned to having committed in
his life—and he regretted having committed them. Despite
having advanced his own interests in having committed his
errata, Franklin regrets having done so. There are, it seems,
obligations we owe one another even in the absence of strict
religious teachings on duty.
Baldwin then examines the criticisms leveled against
Franklin by Max Weber and D. H. Lawrence to the effect
that he promoted a dry, utilitarian materialism that erased
all that was high or even distinctive about human beings.
To the contrary, Franklin’s defense of the pursuit of wealth
is premised on the notion that such pursuit teaches both
individual virtues—such as self-discipline, moderation, a
sense of justice and a “kind of courage”—as well as so-
cial virtues—such as civility and the ability to get along with
others. Nor does Franklin promote the pursuit of wealth as an
ascetic practice (as Weber maintained). Its goal, rather, was
“financial freedom and a happy life” (Baldwin, 27). And that
life, for Franklin, was hardly narrow, selfish, extravagant, or
luxurious. In fact, it involved both friendships and not a little
participation in civic life. The latter, in particular, enabled
him to “freely and generously . . . serve others” (Baldwin,
29). Such was the pull of civic duty, in fact, that Franklin
ultimately left off his plan to pursue philosophy and science
in order, instead, to engage in public service and politics.
Baldwin concludes by examining a certain mystery at the
heart of Franklin’s life: he promotes a fulfilling and truly
private life but fails almost completely to report (in his Au-
tobiography) on what it consisted of. To some extent, this
is perfectly understandable. Not only, as Baldwin says, is a
private life “private,” but presenting one as a model to be
followed would, on Franklin’s understanding, defeat the pur-
pose. If the freedom he sought to promote were to achieve
its full expression, it would have to do so in a wholly unique,
un-predetermined way. But, as Baldwin goes on to argue,
Franklin’s reticence here may signify a certain inadequacy
in his understanding—and his defense—of the private life.
Why, after all, did he increasingly abandon the allegedly su-
perior private life for public service? And might there not be
a certain inescapable hollowness at the core of a “freely cre-
ated” private life, the basis of which was an insufficient “se-
riousness about and desire to possess not only useful moral
and religious teachings but the truth about the meaning of
our lives” (Baldwin, 34, emphasis in original)?
Finally, we turn to Rafael Major’s analysis of America’s
greatest statesman, Abraham Lincoln, from the vantage point
of the world’s greatest poet, William Shakespeare. Shake-
speare, Major argues, not only provides us with the most
appropriate lens through which to view Lincoln, he also pro-
vided Lincoln himself with the core of his political education.
As Lincoln freely admitted in a famous letter, he was an avid
reader of several, though not all, of Shakespeare’s plays,
“especially Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is
wonderful” (Major, 3). Now, as Major notes, this preference
could easily give rise to the suspicion that Lincoln’s admi-
ration for Macbeth the play must be grounded in his sharing
with Macbeth the character a “raging ambition.” But, charges
of “tyranny” notwithstanding, Lincoln always acted constitu-
tionally (as he understood it) in his efforts to save the Consti-
tution and therewith the Union. While he suspended habeas
corpus during the Civil War, it is worth reflecting on the fact
that, despite what looked like extremely poor prospects for
re-election at the time, Lincoln never even toyed with the
idea of suspending the 1864 election. In order to appreciate
and understand Lincoln’s statesmanship, Major argues, we
must not make the characteristic error of assuming that tow-
ering actions can only be measured or judged on the basis of
a grand, abstract, eternally present scheme. Rather, we must
relearn to appreciate what Aristotle (and Herbert Storing,
quoted in Major) understood as “practical reason” or the ap-
plication of reason to particular, peculiar political difficulties
in the absence of pre-existing rules of guidance.
To unravel the riddle of the meaning of Lincoln’s adora-
tion of Macbeth, Major draws our attention to the fact that
Lincoln’s favorite passage in another play with tyrannical
themes was not any soliloquy by Hamlet but, rather, that
of Claudius. For Claudius’s speech reveals to the audience
for the first time that he has, in fact, committed fratricide to
gain the throne. The question reappears: can one like such a
speech for any reason other than sharing the speaker’s tyran-
nical ambitions? In analyzing the soliloquy, Major points out
that Claudius, not unlike Franklin examining his “errata,”
recognizes both the wrongness of what he has done and the
advantages that are its consequence. He is not an immoral or
amoral man, easily committing the most heinous crimes for
lack of any conscience whatsoever. Rather, he is a moral man,
ready to look in an unflinching manner at the meaning of his
having committed an immoral act. Nor does he, like Hamlet,
come to question and even reject reason at such a moment
on the grounds that it leaves us uncomfortably suspended be-
tween two irreconcilable options. For Hamlet, reason leaves
April–June 2012, Volume 41, Number 2 89
us irresolute; for Claudius, resolve means never abandoning
reason. Lincoln’s admiration for the latter begins to make
sense.
Major then turns to an analysis of Macbeth. He stresses
the presence of the witches: insofar as they prophesize Mac-
beth’s rise—and the first part of their prophecy is realized
almost immediately—Macbeth’s ambition seems far more
justified than if it had emanated solely from him. And,
like Claudius, Macbeth does not shrink from confronting
what he has done. He offers no hypocritical justification for
killing the sitting, moderate, and decent King. And unlike
Lady Macbeth, he does not seek refuge in drink. Remaining
sober and undeluded, Macbeth commits the assassination.
And after the assassination, Lady Macbeth (“reminiscent
of young Hamlet”) counsels against thinking about it. He
cannot quite follow this advice and, as Major points out, it
is Lady Macbeth and not he who goes mad in the end.
Major concludes with a consideration of Samuel Johnson’s
famous critique of Shakespeare’s apparent amorality. To be
sure, Shakespeare avoids simply applauding the good and
condemning the bad characters. Indeed, he goes out of his
way to make his characters morally complex and even am-
biguous. But morality that is practiced on the basis of public
applause can be paper-thin. The deepest morality may have to
enter contentious waters and steel itself to widespread public
opprobrium. But, in never abandoning a rigorous consider-
ation of the reasons for its actions, such intrepid morality
should always be capable—as Lincoln himself always re-
mained capable—of offering reasons for his actions.
The three essays we have considered, taken together,
offer an extremely helpful and penetrating introduction to
statesmanship, its possibilities, and its problems. Balancing
between conserving and innovating, between deferring to
public sentiment and attempting to educate it, and perhaps
most importantly, between taking morality seriously while
recognizing its limited applicability in certain political
situations, statesmanship remains an essential yet difficult
to prescribe art. The essays are at one, it seems to me,
in concluding that statesmanship is essentially the art of
moderation, of keeping an oft-times rattled humanity from
seeking, sometimes with the encouragement of very great
thinkers, the (false) comfort of various extremes.
**FranklinsClassicalAmericanStatesmanship.pdf**
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**## DiscussionCaseStudyAssignmentInstructions1.docx**
PADM 700
**Discussion: Case Study Assignment Instructions**
Students will take part in 4 Discussions in which you will conduct a case study of an observed study in a public administration context. The analysis will be based upon the concepts you learned and discussed in the previous module’s essay assignment, writing 450-500 words in the initial thread. For the case study, students are welcome to cite a scholarly source, but if they do, it must not be merely a theoretical/philosophical discussion. Instead, whatever source is used for the actual case study must focus on
_a real-world public administration situation that is being discussed and analyzed in the chosen articl_ e. Students will in turn apply concepts discussed in the previous Module: Week’s essay to analyze the situation, in addition to the required reading and presentations from the current Module: Week. Remember: it will be important to do both!
Then, students will post replies of 200–250 words each to 2 classmates’ threads. Each reply must be unique and must integrate ideas (and citations) from the required reading. Reply comments must engage the case study observations made by classmates and must bring to light concepts from the required reading from the current Module: Week as well as additional reading. Thus, merely posting the same reply in 3 places is not sufficient and may be treated as a form of academic misconduct. The original thread must incorporate ideas and citations from all the required readings and presentations for that Module: Week in addition research from two scholarly sources. The reply posts must also integrate ideas and citations from the required readings and presentations for the Module: Week, as appropriate, and at least two scholarly sources.
·
**Thread:**
· 450-500 words
· Ideas and citations from
**_all_** the required reading and presentations from the Module: Week
· Ideas and citations from two scholarly sources
· Case Study of a real public administration situation related to the concepts discussed in the prior week.
In this course, Discussions play an exceptionally important role. Consider these threads and replies to be formal communications on the same level as those you would conduct with employers, clients, or colleagues in the professional, political, or academic world. As such, they must be free of grammatical errors, must be properly formatted in current APA style, and must consist of well-reasoned, contemplative, and substantive posts and replies, rather than mere ipse dixit. These threads and replies must be adequately supported by citations of the sources or support for your ideas as well as any quoted materials.
Page 1 of 2
**## StatesmanshipReconsidered.pdf**
Perspectives on Political Science
ISSN: 1045-7097 (Print) 1930-5478 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/vpps20
Statesmanship Reconsidered
Richard S. Ruderman
To cite this article: Richard S. Ruderman (2012) Statesmanship Reconsidered, Perspectives on
Political Science, 41:2, 86-89, DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2012.660841
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10457097.2012.660841
Published online: 09 Apr 2012.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 6357
View related articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vpps20
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Perspectives on Political Science, 41:86–89, 2012
Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1045-7097 print / 1930-5478 online
DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2012.660841
Statesmanship Reconsidered
RICHARD S. RUDERMAN
Abstract: Statesmanship can be exercised in a variety of
situations, not all of which involve sitting in the Executive
Office. This response examines three of the most impressive
American efforts at statesmanship—that of Madison in his
capacity as Founder (on how best to secure rights), Franklin
as author of a new American Way of life (based on virtues
freed from religious seriousness), and Lincoln as theorist
of a political morality. All three examples, I argue, provide
evidence that a statesman is more than just a politician who
has been dead for some time.
Keywords: statesmanship, Bill of Rights, James Madison,
Benjamin Franklin, way of life, Abraham Lincoln, William
Shakespeare
W
ith a refreshing breadth of vision, the
three articles under consideration do not
limit their definition of statesmanship to
the amusing but perhaps too cynical re-
mark of Harry Truman: a statesman is a
politician who’s been dead for a while.
Only Rafael Major considers as a statesman an actual Amer-
ican President, Abraham Lincoln; Jeremy Bailey examines
James Madison not as President but as a Founder, chiefly
with an eye toward the proper place of a Bill of Rights within
a liberal constitutional framework, and Christopher Bald-
win examines Benjamin Franklin, not with respect to any
political act proper but rather as an author (through his Auto-
biography) of something like the new American way of life.
Statesmanship, according to all three of our authors, then,
is to be understood as a pedagogic or even architectonic art
that, in Baldwin’s words, seeks “to shape not only American
political institutions, but also and especially the character and
way of life of [their] fellow citizens” (Baldwin, 3).
According to all three authors, liberal democracy cannot
be understood as a political regime indifferent to the way(s)
Richard S. Ruderman is Associate Professor and Chair, De-
partment of Political Science at the University of North Texas.
of life of its citizens. Even the best engineered political insti-
tutions will, of themselves, neither produce healthy citizens
nor be sustained by the indiscriminate production of any and
all human types. Liberal democracies require, for their main-
tenance and health, liberal democratic citizens. And such
citizens, with apologies to Shakespeare, are neither born lib-
eral democrats, nor can have liberal democratic sentiments
thrust upon them: they must achieve the character of liberal
democrats.
Let us first examine Bailey’s account of James Madison,
the statesman as founder. Bailey focuses on the question of
Madison’s puzzling and controversial volte face with respect
to a Bill of Rights: as he says, “Madison was against the Bill
of Rights before he was for it” (Bailey, 2). That is, Madison
began from the Federalist position that including a written
Bill of Rights within the Constitution would likely be dam-
aging to the cause of liberal democracy. As Bailey points
out, this view comes not from the crabbed perspective of a
doubter, unwilling to extend to citizens their rights. Rather,
it arises from a concern that, by listing some rights, the in-
evitably damaging conclusion would be drawn that there
were no others to be retained or exercised. The Federalist
case against a Bill of Rights, initially supported by Madison,
amounts to a reliance on two articles of faith: first, that “the
Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every
useful purpose, a Bill of Rights” (Federalist #84), that is,
faith that the structure of republican government itself, filter-
ing out the indulgent (and oppressive) passions of the people
through the mechanism of representation will ensure that the
ambitious defense of the people’s rights can be counted on
to “counter” any ambitious efforts to restrict them; and sec-
ond, that the people can be expected, even in the absence of
any hortatory effort on the part of government, to recognize,
exercise, and seek to defend their rights.
Over time, Madison might appear to have begun to en-
tertain doubts about each of these articles of faith, in par-
ticular the latter. However adept at channeling majority sen-
timent the Constitution might prove to be, there remained
reasons to fear that, on some occasions, even constitutional
majorities would need to be restrained. And to do that (at
86
April–June 2012, Volume 41, Number 2 87
some future moment of crisis or heightened anger), Madi-
son seems to have concluded, some force “more powerful
than any majority” (as Bailey quotes Goldwin, p. 4) would
have to be inserted into the Constitution. The statesman-as-
founder sought to arm all future statesmen with a weapon
they could ill afford to do without in sometimes doing battle
with majorities, especially in the states (where, according to
the “layer-cake” view of federalism prevalent at the founding,
the authority of the national government did not extend). But
much more, one could educate, via a Bill of Rights, all future
majorities to respect their own limitations. Public opinion
could be kept squarely on the side of individual rights. (This
is particularly important, Bailey suggests, insofar as Madi-
son may have been an opponent of judicial review, the notion
that the “least powerful branch” could—or even had the right
to—enforce individual rights against majority sentiment.)
Madison, then, became a respectful critic of public opin-
ion. He knew, perhaps better than any other Founder, the
need to work with and even placate public opinion. But he
also knew that public opinion could and should be educable.
(The latter involved overcoming a certain earlier distaste on
Madison’s part for giving a “harangue”—p. 10.) According
to this reading of his reversal, Madison became, one might
say, a Lincoln avant la lettre.
As Bailey points out, the most essential component of
Madison’s change of heart is his changed understanding of
“opinion” and its role in democratic government. Madison’s
ambivalence concerning opinion (he first omits, and then
includes it as a cause, along with “passion and interest,” of
faction in Federalist #10) seems to resolve itself into his final
view (expressed in a 1788 letter to Jefferson) that opinion, if
educated, can “mitigate the [true] causes of faction, passion
and interest” (Bailey, 20). This would mean, as Bailey notes,
Madison is in this crucial respect closer to Jefferson than is
commonly recognized: both men feared that the people, in
the absence of a continuing political education in the meaning
of rights, would tend to sacrifice them for their interests (23).
Ultimately, however, Bailey prefers the more practical po-
litical reasons that Madison may have had both for initially
objecting to a Bill of Rights and eventually for acquiescing in
it. Initially, his opposition arose from his desire to avoid at all
costs a second convention that would, no doubt, open up other
cans of worms that would destroy the delicate agreement se-
cured at the first. And Madison may have then come to accept
the inclusion of a Bill of Rights chiefly in order to increase
the prospects of ratification. Most of all, he seems finally to
have doubted the educative power of a Bill of Rights: outside
of the private letter to Jefferson (in France at the time), Madi-
son appears not to have advanced the argument at all. Bailey
concludes that Madison may have been consistent through-
out his career in his recognition of the imperfections of the
Constitution, but there was no clear unity in his treatment
of them. He hoped to secure a place for both future delib-
eration and judgment, unconstrained by strict constitutional
strictures, and future veneration of the Constitution as a com-
pact not to be altered. Madison’s ambivalence mirrors that
of statesmanship as such: it must sometimes conserve and
other times innovate, but each aspect of statesmanship risks
undermining the other.
Christopher Baldwin classifies Franklin’s literary efforts
to limn a “new character and way of life” for Americans as
an instance of “classical” American statesmanship. On the
one hand, “classical” statesmanship need not be exercised
from political office and, on the other, concerns itself with a
far more fundamental issue than “who gets what, when, and
how.” If there was an American Founder who believed that
the Constitution was a “machine that would run of itself,”
Franklin was not that man. In order to succeed, America
would have to be populated by citizens still dedicated to
virtue, albeit a virtue of an altogether new sort. To that end,
Franklin sought to “shape” his fellow citizens’ “moral opin-
ions and character” (Baldwin, 5).
Baldwin devotes considerable attention to the rhetorical
manner by which Franklin proceeds. It can be character-
ized as the polar opposite of that utilized by Cotton Mather.
Charming instead of hectoring, insinuating where the latter
was blunt, Franklin’s every remark serves to invite his read-
ers to look at this world as a place of promise and possibility,
rather than as a fallen one within whose crevices nothing
but enticement to sin can be found. As though adding a new
“Life” to the pages of Plutarch (a book he avidly read as a
boy), Franklin advances most of his moral lessons through
his portrayal, in his Autobiography, of his own life. The over-
arching lesson seems to be that, from humble circumstances,
anyone can rise to a useful and comfortable station in a lib-
eral democracy. To do so, however, requires that one learn to
run away, not from home, so much as from “the ideas of the
Old World” (Baldwin, 8).
Chief among those “old” ideas is “religious seriousness.”
As a young man, Franklin tried his hand at refuting the basis
of religion by writing and publishing “A Dissertation on
Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.” For his troubles,
Franklin began to be pointed at “with horror.” From this, says
Baldwin, Franklin learned not to reconsider his own ideas
but, rather, not to express them publicly. Rather than attack
religion for its falseness, Franklin turned to defending it for
its utility. But, says Baldwin, this manner of defense might
be the most effectual way to bring his readers to “take the
question of religion’s truth less seriously than the question
of its utility” (Baldwin, 10). Franklin then draws out the
political ramifications of this shift in perspective. While a
True religion cannot abide dissenters, a “useful” one can
“tolerate” and even encourage others that, true or not, can
assist people in becoming better people and better citizens.
Franklin opposes religious seriousness in part because
it feeds and is fed by moral seriousness. And moral
seriousness—in the sense of unwavering devotion to a prin-
ciple, come what may—is “foolish at best and hypocritical at
worst” in political life (Baldwin, 12). Preparing the way for
such events as Frederick Douglass’s later break with William
Lloyd Garrison, Franklin elevates the “ethics of responsibil-
ity” (as Max Weber was later to call it) over the “ethics of
intention.”
As though it followed in principle from his break
with religious and moral seriousness, Franklin went on
to encourage free-thinking. But Baldwin is careful to
note that Franklin does not thereby dismiss morality as
such. In fact, in response to his having viewed a woman
88 Perspectives on Political Science
in England try—and fail—to achieve the kind of moral
perfection promoted by Christianity (the celibate life of a
nun), Franklin endeavored the “bold and arduous project”
of achieving moral perfection himself. Far from imitating
the Englishwoman’s efforts, however, Franklin gave an alto-
gether this-worldly cast to them: he sought to put her frugality
to use, not in the introspection that leads to the uncovering of
sin, but in the businesslike self-discipline needed to achieve
this-worldly deferred success. His reorientation of virtue
notwithstanding, Franklin too proved incapable of attaining
moral perfection. But he responds to that failure, without
a trace of guilt, by observing he was at least better off for
having made the effort. He even entertains the thought that
imperfect morals may lead to greater enjoyment and success
in this world. Franklin’s new morality is forgiving, somewhat
improvisational, democratic, and egalitarian. It does not
ask us to be “saints or classical heroes” (Baldwin, 17).
He rejects some classical virtues (courage), utterly reinter-
prets some Biblical ones (sexual intercourse need not be
strictly linked to the propagation of offspring), and connects
most of the remaining ones to the securing—rather than the
distributing or renouncing—of wealth.
Baldwin’s most important observation, however, is that
none of this means Franklin practiced or preached a moral
laxity, equating “virtue with whatever is in our long-term,
enlightened self-interest in this world” (Baldwin, 19). This is,
in part, because Franklin recognized that he could not rectify
two of the five “errata” he owned to having committed in
his life—and he regretted having committed them. Despite
having advanced his own interests in having committed his
errata, Franklin regrets having done so. There are, it seems,
obligations we owe one another even in the absence of strict
religious teachings on duty.
Baldwin then examines the criticisms leveled against
Franklin by Max Weber and D. H. Lawrence to the effect
that he promoted a dry, utilitarian materialism that erased
all that was high or even distinctive about human beings.
To the contrary, Franklin’s defense of the pursuit of wealth
is premised on the notion that such pursuit teaches both
individual virtues—such as self-discipline, moderation, a
sense of justice and a “kind of courage”—as well as so-
cial virtues—such as civility and the ability to get along with
others. Nor does Franklin promote the pursuit of wealth as an
ascetic practice (as Weber maintained). Its goal, rather, was
“financial freedom and a happy life” (Baldwin, 27). And that
life, for Franklin, was hardly narrow, selfish, extravagant, or
luxurious. In fact, it involved both friendships and not a little
participation in civic life. The latter, in particular, enabled
him to “freely and generously . . . serve others” (Baldwin,
29). Such was the pull of civic duty, in fact, that Franklin
ultimately left off his plan to pursue philosophy and science
in order, instead, to engage in public service and politics.
Baldwin concludes by examining a certain mystery at the
heart of Franklin’s life: he promotes a fulfilling and truly
private life but fails almost completely to report (in his Au-
tobiography) on what it consisted of. To some extent, this
is perfectly understandable. Not only, as Baldwin says, is a
private life “private,” but presenting one as a model to be
followed would, on Franklin’s understanding, defeat the pur-
pose. If the freedom he sought to promote were to achieve
its full expression, it would have to do so in a wholly unique,
un-predetermined way. But, as Baldwin goes on to argue,
Franklin’s reticence here may signify a certain inadequacy
in his understanding—and his defense—of the private life.
Why, after all, did he increasingly abandon the allegedly su-
perior private life for public service? And might there not be
a certain inescapable hollowness at the core of a “freely cre-
ated” private life, the basis of which was an insufficient “se-
riousness about and desire to possess not only useful moral
and religious teachings but the truth about the meaning of
our lives” (Baldwin, 34, emphasis in original)?
Finally, we turn to Rafael Major’s analysis of America’s
greatest statesman, Abraham Lincoln, from the vantage point
of the world’s greatest poet, William Shakespeare. Shake-
speare, Major argues, not only provides us with the most
appropriate lens through which to view Lincoln, he also pro-
vided Lincoln himself with the core of his political education.
As Lincoln freely admitted in a famous letter, he was an avid
reader of several, though not all, of Shakespeare’s plays,
“especially Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is
wonderful” (Major, 3). Now, as Major notes, this preference
could easily give rise to the suspicion that Lincoln’s admi-
ration for Macbeth the play must be grounded in his sharing
with Macbeth the character a “raging ambition.” But, charges
of “tyranny” notwithstanding, Lincoln always acted constitu-
tionally (as he understood it) in his efforts to save the Consti-
tution and therewith the Union. While he suspended habeas
corpus during the Civil War, it is worth reflecting on the fact
that, despite what looked like extremely poor prospects for
re-election at the time, Lincoln never even toyed with the
idea of suspending the 1864 election. In order to appreciate
and understand Lincoln’s statesmanship, Major argues, we
must not make the characteristic error of assuming that tow-
ering actions can only be measured or judged on the basis of
a grand, abstract, eternally present scheme. Rather, we must
relearn to appreciate what Aristotle (and Herbert Storing,
quoted in Major) understood as “practical reason” or the ap-
plication of reason to particular, peculiar political difficulties
in the absence of pre-existing rules of guidance.
To unravel the riddle of the meaning of Lincoln’s adora-
tion of Macbeth, Major draws our attention to the fact that
Lincoln’s favorite passage in another play with tyrannical
themes was not any soliloquy by Hamlet but, rather, that
of Claudius. For Claudius’s speech reveals to the audience
for the first time that he has, in fact, committed fratricide to
gain the throne. The question reappears: can one like such a
speech for any reason other than sharing the speaker’s tyran-
nical ambitions? In analyzing the soliloquy, Major points out
that Claudius, not unlike Franklin examining his “errata,”
recognizes both the wrongness of what he has done and the
advantages that are its consequence. He is not an immoral or
amoral man, easily committing the most heinous crimes for
lack of any conscience whatsoever. Rather, he is a moral man,
ready to look in an unflinching manner at the meaning of his
having committed an immoral act. Nor does he, like Hamlet,
come to question and even reject reason at such a moment
on the grounds that it leaves us uncomfortably suspended be-
tween two irreconcilable options. For Hamlet, reason leaves
April–June 2012, Volume 41, Number 2 89
us irresolute; for Claudius, resolve means never abandoning
reason. Lincoln’s admiration for the latter begins to make
sense.
Major then turns to an analysis of Macbeth. He stresses
the presence of the witches: insofar as they prophesize Mac-
beth’s rise—and the first part of their prophecy is realized
almost immediately—Macbeth’s ambition seems far more
justified than if it had emanated solely from him. And,
like Claudius, Macbeth does not shrink from confronting
what he has done. He offers no hypocritical justification for
killing the sitting, moderate, and decent King. And unlike
Lady Macbeth, he does not seek refuge in drink. Remaining
sober and undeluded, Macbeth commits the assassination.
And after the assassination, Lady Macbeth (“reminiscent
of young Hamlet”) counsels against thinking about it. He
cannot quite follow this advice and, as Major points out, it
is Lady Macbeth and not he who goes mad in the end.
Major concludes with a consideration of Samuel Johnson’s
famous critique of Shakespeare’s apparent amorality. To be
sure, Shakespeare avoids simply applauding the good and
condemning the bad characters. Indeed, he goes out of his
way to make his characters morally complex and even am-
biguous. But morality that is practiced on the basis of public
applause can be paper-thin. The deepest morality may have to
enter contentious waters and steel itself to widespread public
opprobrium. But, in never abandoning a rigorous consider-
ation of the reasons for its actions, such intrepid morality
should always be capable—as Lincoln himself always re-
mained capable—of offering reasons for his actions.
The three essays we have considered, taken together,
offer an extremely helpful and penetrating introduction to
statesmanship, its possibilities, and its problems. Balancing
between conserving and innovating, between deferring to
public sentiment and attempting to educate it, and perhaps
most importantly, between taking morality seriously while
recognizing its limited applicability in certain political
situations, statesmanship remains an essential yet difficult
to prescribe art. The essays are at one, it seems to me,
in concluding that statesmanship is essentially the art of
moderation, of keeping an oft-times rattled humanity from
seeking, sometimes with the encouragement of very great
thinkers, the (false) comfort of various extremes.
**FranklinsClassicalAmericanStatesmanship.pdf**
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**## DiscussionCaseStudyAssignmentInstructions1.docx**
PADM 700
**Discussion: Case Study Assignment Instructions**
Students will take part in 4 Discussions in which you will conduct a case study of an observed study in a public administration context. The analysis will be based upon the concepts you learned and discussed in the previous module’s essay assignment, writing 450-500 words in the initial thread. For the case study, students are welcome to cite a scholarly source, but if they do, it must not be merely a theoretical/philosophical discussion. Instead, whatever source is used for the actual case study must focus on
_a real-world public administration situation that is being discussed and analyzed in the chosen articl_ e. Students will in turn apply concepts discussed in the previous Module: Week’s essay to analyze the situation, in addition to the required reading and presentations from the current Module: Week. Remember: it will be important to do both!
Then, students will post replies of 200–250 words each to 2 classmates’ threads. Each reply must be unique and must integrate ideas (and citations) from the required reading. Reply comments must engage the case study observations made by classmates and must bring to light concepts from the required reading from the current Module: Week as well as additional reading. Thus, merely posting the same reply in 3 places is not sufficient and may be treated as a form of academic misconduct. The original thread must incorporate ideas and citations from all the required readings and presentations for that Module: Week in addition research from two scholarly sources. The reply posts must also integrate ideas and citations from the required readings and presentations for the Module: Week, as appropriate, and at least two scholarly sources.
·
**Thread:**
· 450-500 words
· Ideas and citations from
**_all_** the required reading and presentations from the Module: Week
· Ideas and citations from two scholarly sources
· Case Study of a real public administration situation related to the concepts discussed in the prior week.
In this course, Discussions play an exceptionally important role. Consider these threads and replies to be formal communications on the same level as those you would conduct with employers, clients, or colleagues in the professional, political, or academic world. As such, they must be free of grammatical errors, must be properly formatted in current APA style, and must consist of well-reasoned, contemplative, and substantive posts and replies, rather than mere ipse dixit. These threads and replies must be adequately supported by citations of the sources or support for your ideas as well as any quoted materials.
Page 1 of 2
**## StatesmanshipReconsidered.pdf**
Perspectives on Political Science
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Statesmanship Reconsidered
Richard S. Ruderman
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Perspectives on Political Science, 41:86–89, 2012
Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1045-7097 print / 1930-5478 online
DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2012.660841
Statesmanship Reconsidered
RICHARD S. RUDERMAN
Abstract: Statesmanship can be exercised in a variety of
situations, not all of which involve sitting in the Executive
Office. This response examines three of the most impressive
American efforts at statesmanship—that of Madison in his
capacity as Founder (on how best to secure rights), Franklin
as author of a new American Way of life (based on virtues
freed from religious seriousness), and Lincoln as theorist
of a political morality. All three examples, I argue, provide
evidence that a statesman is more than just a politician who
has been dead for some time.
Keywords: statesmanship, Bill of Rights, James Madison,
Benjamin Franklin, way of life, Abraham Lincoln, William
Shakespeare
W
ith a refreshing breadth of vision, the
three articles under consideration do not
limit their definition of statesmanship to
the amusing but perhaps too cynical re-
mark of Harry Truman: a statesman is a
politician who’s been dead for a while.
Only Rafael Major considers as a statesman an actual Amer-
ican President, Abraham Lincoln; Jeremy Bailey examines
James Madison not as President but as a Founder, chiefly
with an eye toward the proper place of a Bill of Rights within
a liberal constitutional framework, and Christopher Bald-
win examines Benjamin Franklin, not with respect to any
political act proper but rather as an author (through his Auto-
biography) of something like the new American way of life.
Statesmanship, according to all three of our authors, then,
is to be understood as a pedagogic or even architectonic art
that, in Baldwin’s words, seeks “to shape not only American
political institutions, but also and especially the character and
way of life of [their] fellow citizens” (Baldwin, 3).
According to all three authors, liberal democracy cannot
be understood as a political regime indifferent to the way(s)
Richard S. Ruderman is Associate Professor and Chair, De-
partment of Political Science at the University of North Texas.
of life of its citizens. Even the best engineered political insti-
tutions will, of themselves, neither produce healthy citizens
nor be sustained by the indiscriminate production of any and
all human types. Liberal democracies require, for their main-
tenance and health, liberal democratic citizens. And such
citizens, with apologies to Shakespeare, are neither born lib-
eral democrats, nor can have liberal democratic sentiments
thrust upon them: they must achieve the character of liberal
democrats.
Let us first examine Bailey’s account of James Madison,
the statesman as founder. Bailey focuses on the question of
Madison’s puzzling and controversial volte face with respect
to a Bill of Rights: as he says, “Madison was against the Bill
of Rights before he was for it” (Bailey, 2). That is, Madison
began from the Federalist position that including a written
Bill of Rights within the Constitution would likely be dam-
aging to the cause of liberal democracy. As Bailey points
out, this view comes not from the crabbed perspective of a
doubter, unwilling to extend to citizens their rights. Rather,
it arises from a concern that, by listing some rights, the in-
evitably damaging conclusion would be drawn that there
were no others to be retained or exercised. The Federalist
case against a Bill of Rights, initially supported by Madison,
amounts to a reliance on two articles of faith: first, that “the
Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every
useful purpose, a Bill of Rights” (Federalist #84), that is,
faith that the structure of republican government itself, filter-
ing out the indulgent (and oppressive) passions of the people
through the mechanism of representation will ensure that the
ambitious defense of the people’s rights can be counted on
to “counter” any ambitious efforts to restrict them; and sec-
ond, that the people can be expected, even in the absence of
any hortatory effort on the part of government, to recognize,
exercise, and seek to defend their rights.
Over time, Madison might appear to have begun to en-
tertain doubts about each of these articles of faith, in par-
ticular the latter. However adept at channeling majority sen-
timent the Constitution might prove to be, there remained
reasons to fear that, on some occasions, even constitutional
majorities would need to be restrained. And to do that (at
86
April–June 2012, Volume 41, Number 2 87
some future moment of crisis or heightened anger), Madi-
son seems to have concluded, some force “more powerful
than any majority” (as Bailey quotes Goldwin, p. 4) would
have to be inserted into the Constitution. The statesman-as-
founder sought to arm all future statesmen with a weapon
they could ill afford to do without in sometimes doing battle
with majorities, especially in the states (where, according to
the “layer-cake” view of federalism prevalent at the founding,
the authority of the national government did not extend). But
much more, one could educate, via a Bill of Rights, all future
majorities to respect their own limitations. Public opinion
could be kept squarely on the side of individual rights. (This
is particularly important, Bailey suggests, insofar as Madi-
son may have been an opponent of judicial review, the notion
that the “least powerful branch” could—or even had the right
to—enforce individual rights against majority sentiment.)
Madison, then, became a respectful critic of public opin-
ion. He knew, perhaps better than any other Founder, the
need to work with and even placate public opinion. But he
also knew that public opinion could and should be educable.
(The latter involved overcoming a certain earlier distaste on
Madison’s part for giving a “harangue”—p. 10.) According
to this reading of his reversal, Madison became, one might
say, a Lincoln avant la lettre.
As Bailey points out, the most essential component of
Madison’s change of heart is his changed understanding of
“opinion” and its role in democratic government. Madison’s
ambivalence concerning opinion (he first omits, and then
includes it as a cause, along with “passion and interest,” of
faction in Federalist #10) seems to resolve itself into his final
view (expressed in a 1788 letter to Jefferson) that opinion, if
educated, can “mitigate the [true] causes of faction, passion
and interest” (Bailey, 20). This would mean, as Bailey notes,
Madison is in this crucial respect closer to Jefferson than is
commonly recognized: both men feared that the people, in
the absence of a continuing political education in the meaning
of rights, would tend to sacrifice them for their interests (23).
Ultimately, however, Bailey prefers the more practical po-
litical reasons that Madison may have had both for initially
objecting to a Bill of Rights and eventually for acquiescing in
it. Initially, his opposition arose from his desire to avoid at all
costs a second convention that would, no doubt, open up other
cans of worms that would destroy the delicate agreement se-
cured at the first. And Madison may have then come to accept
the inclusion of a Bill of Rights chiefly in order to increase
the prospects of ratification. Most of all, he seems finally to
have doubted the educative power of a Bill of Rights: outside
of the private letter to Jefferson (in France at the time), Madi-
son appears not to have advanced the argument at all. Bailey
concludes that Madison may have been consistent through-
out his career in his recognition of the imperfections of the
Constitution, but there was no clear unity in his treatment
of them. He hoped to secure a place for both future delib-
eration and judgment, unconstrained by strict constitutional
strictures, and future veneration of the Constitution as a com-
pact not to be altered. Madison’s ambivalence mirrors that
of statesmanship as such: it must sometimes conserve and
other times innovate, but each aspect of statesmanship risks
undermining the other.
Christopher Baldwin classifies Franklin’s literary efforts
to limn a “new character and way of life” for Americans as
an instance of “classical” American statesmanship. On the
one hand, “classical” statesmanship need not be exercised
from political office and, on the other, concerns itself with a
far more fundamental issue than “who gets what, when, and
how.” If there was an American Founder who believed that
the Constitution was a “machine that would run of itself,”
Franklin was not that man. In order to succeed, America
would have to be populated by citizens still dedicated to
virtue, albeit a virtue of an altogether new sort. To that end,
Franklin sought to “shape” his fellow citizens’ “moral opin-
ions and character” (Baldwin, 5).
Baldwin devotes considerable attention to the rhetorical
manner by which Franklin proceeds. It can be character-
ized as the polar opposite of that utilized by Cotton Mather.
Charming instead of hectoring, insinuating where the latter
was blunt, Franklin’s every remark serves to invite his read-
ers to look at this world as a place of promise and possibility,
rather than as a fallen one within whose crevices nothing
but enticement to sin can be found. As though adding a new
“Life” to the pages of Plutarch (a book he avidly read as a
boy), Franklin advances most of his moral lessons through
his portrayal, in his Autobiography, of his own life. The over-
arching lesson seems to be that, from humble circumstances,
anyone can rise to a useful and comfortable station in a lib-
eral democracy. To do so, however, requires that one learn to
run away, not from home, so much as from “the ideas of the
Old World” (Baldwin, 8).
Chief among those “old” ideas is “religious seriousness.”
As a young man, Franklin tried his hand at refuting the basis
of religion by writing and publishing “A Dissertation on
Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.” For his troubles,
Franklin began to be pointed at “with horror.” From this, says
Baldwin, Franklin learned not to reconsider his own ideas
but, rather, not to express them publicly. Rather than attack
religion for its falseness, Franklin turned to defending it for
its utility. But, says Baldwin, this manner of defense might
be the most effectual way to bring his readers to “take the
question of religion’s truth less seriously than the question
of its utility” (Baldwin, 10). Franklin then draws out the
political ramifications of this shift in perspective. While a
True religion cannot abide dissenters, a “useful” one can
“tolerate” and even encourage others that, true or not, can
assist people in becoming better people and better citizens.
Franklin opposes religious seriousness in part because
it feeds and is fed by moral seriousness. And moral
seriousness—in the sense of unwavering devotion to a prin-
ciple, come what may—is “foolish at best and hypocritical at
worst” in political life (Baldwin, 12). Preparing the way for
such events as Frederick Douglass’s later break with William
Lloyd Garrison, Franklin elevates the “ethics of responsibil-
ity” (as Max Weber was later to call it) over the “ethics of
intention.”
As though it followed in principle from his break
with religious and moral seriousness, Franklin went on
to encourage free-thinking. But Baldwin is careful to
note that Franklin does not thereby dismiss morality as
such. In fact, in response to his having viewed a woman
88 Perspectives on Political Science
in England try—and fail—to achieve the kind of moral
perfection promoted by Christianity (the celibate life of a
nun), Franklin endeavored the “bold and arduous project”
of achieving moral perfection himself. Far from imitating
the Englishwoman’s efforts, however, Franklin gave an alto-
gether this-worldly cast to them: he sought to put her frugality
to use, not in the introspection that leads to the uncovering of
sin, but in the businesslike self-discipline needed to achieve
this-worldly deferred success. His reorientation of virtue
notwithstanding, Franklin too proved incapable of attaining
moral perfection. But he responds to that failure, without
a trace of guilt, by observing he was at least better off for
having made the effort. He even entertains the thought that
imperfect morals may lead to greater enjoyment and success
in this world. Franklin’s new morality is forgiving, somewhat
improvisational, democratic, and egalitarian. It does not
ask us to be “saints or classical heroes” (Baldwin, 17).
He rejects some classical virtues (courage), utterly reinter-
prets some Biblical ones (sexual intercourse need not be
strictly linked to the propagation of offspring), and connects
most of the remaining ones to the securing—rather than the
distributing or renouncing—of wealth.
Baldwin’s most important observation, however, is that
none of this means Franklin practiced or preached a moral
laxity, equating “virtue with whatever is in our long-term,
enlightened self-interest in this world” (Baldwin, 19). This is,
in part, because Franklin recognized that he could not rectify
two of the five “errata” he owned to having committed in
his life—and he regretted having committed them. Despite
having advanced his own interests in having committed his
errata, Franklin regrets having done so. There are, it seems,
obligations we owe one another even in the absence of strict
religious teachings on duty.
Baldwin then examines the criticisms leveled against
Franklin by Max Weber and D. H. Lawrence to the effect
that he promoted a dry, utilitarian materialism that erased
all that was high or even distinctive about human beings.
To the contrary, Franklin’s defense of the pursuit of wealth
is premised on the notion that such pursuit teaches both
individual virtues—such as self-discipline, moderation, a
sense of justice and a “kind of courage”—as well as so-
cial virtues—such as civility and the ability to get along with
others. Nor does Franklin promote the pursuit of wealth as an
ascetic practice (as Weber maintained). Its goal, rather, was
“financial freedom and a happy life” (Baldwin, 27). And that
life, for Franklin, was hardly narrow, selfish, extravagant, or
luxurious. In fact, it involved both friendships and not a little
participation in civic life. The latter, in particular, enabled
him to “freely and generously . . . serve others” (Baldwin,
29). Such was the pull of civic duty, in fact, that Franklin
ultimately left off his plan to pursue philosophy and science
in order, instead, to engage in public service and politics.
Baldwin concludes by examining a certain mystery at the
heart of Franklin’s life: he promotes a fulfilling and truly
private life but fails almost completely to report (in his Au-
tobiography) on what it consisted of. To some extent, this
is perfectly understandable. Not only, as Baldwin says, is a
private life “private,” but presenting one as a model to be
followed would, on Franklin’s understanding, defeat the pur-
pose. If the freedom he sought to promote were to achieve
its full expression, it would have to do so in a wholly unique,
un-predetermined way. But, as Baldwin goes on to argue,
Franklin’s reticence here may signify a certain inadequacy
in his understanding—and his defense—of the private life.
Why, after all, did he increasingly abandon the allegedly su-
perior private life for public service? And might there not be
a certain inescapable hollowness at the core of a “freely cre-
ated” private life, the basis of which was an insufficient “se-
riousness about and desire to possess not only useful moral
and religious teachings but the truth about the meaning of
our lives” (Baldwin, 34, emphasis in original)?
Finally, we turn to Rafael Major’s analysis of America’s
greatest statesman, Abraham Lincoln, from the vantage point
of the world’s greatest poet, William Shakespeare. Shake-
speare, Major argues, not only provides us with the most
appropriate lens through which to view Lincoln, he also pro-
vided Lincoln himself with the core of his political education.
As Lincoln freely admitted in a famous letter, he was an avid
reader of several, though not all, of Shakespeare’s plays,
“especially Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is
wonderful” (Major, 3). Now, as Major notes, this preference
could easily give rise to the suspicion that Lincoln’s admi-
ration for Macbeth the play must be grounded in his sharing
with Macbeth the character a “raging ambition.” But, charges
of “tyranny” notwithstanding, Lincoln always acted constitu-
tionally (as he understood it) in his efforts to save the Consti-
tution and therewith the Union. While he suspended habeas
corpus during the Civil War, it is worth reflecting on the fact
that, despite what looked like extremely poor prospects for
re-election at the time, Lincoln never even toyed with the
idea of suspending the 1864 election. In order to appreciate
and understand Lincoln’s statesmanship, Major argues, we
must not make the characteristic error of assuming that tow-
ering actions can only be measured or judged on the basis of
a grand, abstract, eternally present scheme. Rather, we must
relearn to appreciate what Aristotle (and Herbert Storing,
quoted in Major) understood as “practical reason” or the ap-
plication of reason to particular, peculiar political difficulties
in the absence of pre-existing rules of guidance.
To unravel the riddle of the meaning of Lincoln’s adora-
tion of Macbeth, Major draws our attention to the fact that
Lincoln’s favorite passage in another play with tyrannical
themes was not any soliloquy by Hamlet but, rather, that
of Claudius. For Claudius’s speech reveals to the audience
for the first time that he has, in fact, committed fratricide to
gain the throne. The question reappears: can one like such a
speech for any reason other than sharing the speaker’s tyran-
nical ambitions? In analyzing the soliloquy, Major points out
that Claudius, not unlike Franklin examining his “errata,”
recognizes both the wrongness of what he has done and the
advantages that are its consequence. He is not an immoral or
amoral man, easily committing the most heinous crimes for
lack of any conscience whatsoever. Rather, he is a moral man,
ready to look in an unflinching manner at the meaning of his
having committed an immoral act. Nor does he, like Hamlet,
come to question and even reject reason at such a moment
on the grounds that it leaves us uncomfortably suspended be-
tween two irreconcilable options. For Hamlet, reason leaves
April–June 2012, Volume 41, Number 2 89
us irresolute; for Claudius, resolve means never abandoning
reason. Lincoln’s admiration for the latter begins to make
sense.
Major then turns to an analysis of Macbeth. He stresses
the presence of the witches: insofar as they prophesize Mac-
beth’s rise—and the first part of their prophecy is realized
almost immediately—Macbeth’s ambition seems far more
justified than if it had emanated solely from him. And,
like Claudius, Macbeth does not shrink from confronting
what he has done. He offers no hypocritical justification for
killing the sitting, moderate, and decent King. And unlike
Lady Macbeth, he does not seek refuge in drink. Remaining
sober and undeluded, Macbeth commits the assassination.
And after the assassination, Lady Macbeth (“reminiscent
of young Hamlet”) counsels against thinking about it. He
cannot quite follow this advice and, as Major points out, it
is Lady Macbeth and not he who goes mad in the end.
Major concludes with a consideration of Samuel Johnson’s
famous critique of Shakespeare’s apparent amorality. To be
sure, Shakespeare avoids simply applauding the good and
condemning the bad characters. Indeed, he goes out of his
way to make his characters morally complex and even am-
biguous. But morality that is practiced on the basis of public
applause can be paper-thin. The deepest morality may have to
enter contentious waters and steel itself to widespread public
opprobrium. But, in never abandoning a rigorous consider-
ation of the reasons for its actions, such intrepid morality
should always be capable—as Lincoln himself always re-
mained capable—of offering reasons for his actions.
The three essays we have considered, taken together,
offer an extremely helpful and penetrating introduction to
statesmanship, its possibilities, and its problems. Balancing
between conserving and innovating, between deferring to
public sentiment and attempting to educate it, and perhaps
most importantly, between taking morality seriously while
recognizing its limited applicability in certain political
situations, statesmanship remains an essential yet difficult
to prescribe art. The essays are at one, it seems to me,
in concluding that statesmanship is essentially the art of
moderation, of keeping an oft-times rattled humanity from
seeking, sometimes with the encouragement of very great
thinkers, the (false) comfort of various extremes.
**FranklinsClassicalAmericanStatesmanship.pdf**
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**JofSupremeCourtHistory-2018-Burns-ChiefJusticeasChiefExecutiveTaftsJudicialStatesmanship.pdf**
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**Readpages42to51.pdf**
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