Challenging Those Who Judge Our Founders

by Jim Kenaston

My hope with this otherwise unpublished article was to offer a constructive challenge to those who cast wholly negative judgments upon our nation's founders, but to also challenge fellow conservatives to seek ways of constructively engaging with them, a hard task indeed, given the level of duplicity I see among radical Progressives. 

For Christians, I believe the call is toward constructive engagement, but with a humble heart, and with the hope of helping to change hearts that are currently centered on gaining or maintaining worldly power. This may be a tall order when you're dealing with extremists (on either side), though it seems part of what we're called to for this time. - Jim

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During our time, many have cast rather harsh judgments upon past generations that failed to prepare for us a more perfect world. They did, however, leave with us tools we could use toward solving some of the problems they were unable to resolve themselves. Given an inherited system of social evils and a range of convictions about what could be done, perhaps offering tools for future generations to work with was the best they could do.

This may have been the case for the United States' founding generation. They were far removed from the beginnings of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, inheriting it from prior generations, though they sought to abolish it while establishing a government that would limit centralization of power, a historical norm they had learned to fear. In establishing a constitutional republic, they claimed that all people are created equal. They aspired to build a society where all citizens would be treated equally before the law, even while most recognized that this was not the case at our founding.

The existence of slavery was a focal point of their discourse, arguments made among people seeking to establish an independent government under self-rule. One side in the ongoing debate saw no problem in treating slaves as a sub-human race (and therefore not as citizens with full rights). Others, such as George Washington, were caught in the awkward position of having inherited slaves that they would like to have freed. They understood, however, that freeing inherited slaves was to put them at great risk in the hostile social context of the time, and especially in the southern colonies that would comprise part of The United States. Others were adamant about the inherently dehumanizing character of slavery and their desire to end it and it's spread.

It was by people of these circumstances and viewpoints that our nation was founded. In the end, they were only able to compromise on the issue. Their success was in establishing a federalist system of government that limited centralization of power. Regarding the thorny issue of slavery, they hoped that it might be resolved over time, and perhaps by future generations with an altered set of circumstances from that of their own.

Compromises continued, however, which ultimately led to the American Civil War, one that was ostensibly fought over the principal of state rights, though it primarily focused on the unresolved issue of whether to end slavery. Bitterly fought, the war ended an evil institution, but subjugated a people by force and failed to change many hearts. It led to a hundred-year period of racist laws that were viciously enforced.

Yet even sixty years beyond the time when such racist laws were repealed, there are still those who treat racial minorities as if they were subhuman and unable to think for themselves. Where there might be political gain, some politicians have sought to "keep blacks on the plantation," treating minority groups as children, often buying votes with entitlements and handouts of various kinds.

Politicians from this same quarter embraced the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, seeking to limit the number of children born to minority families. They later embraced the Sexual Revolution, which has had a devastating impact on the family structure, a consequence experienced most markedly among minority communities where father absenteeism and its consequences have become the norm.

All of this is to suggest that from our founding as a nation, our leaders have had to negotiate the times and rather difficult issues with bad or misguided actors among them. This is as true today as it was nearly 250 years ago, yet our founders provided for us a system whereby we, people of varied agendas and interests, could continue to wrestle through a full range of complicated public policy questions, and with the hope of fostering human flourishing.

If we are inclined to harshly judge our founders for not handing us a more perfect world, we might want to consider the issues we are leaving unresolved for future generations. Will they judge us harshly for leaving them an insurmountable debt? Will they fault us for collectively regarding the unborn as subhuman, not deserving the right to life? If we are quick to judge 18th century Americans as a collective whole, can we object to being judged as a collective whole by those who will come after us, regardless of how we voted on the issues of our time?

We may do well to shore up the tools of representative democracy that have been left to us, rather than experiment with mob rule, violence, censorship, and anarcho-tyranny that some among us have turned to. Such tactics could in fact lead to another hot American Civil War, as well as to the lingering resentments that would most likely follow.

It would be better, I believe, to retain the political tools that our founders provided, trusting future generations to work on the difficult public policy issues we are unable to resolve during our short time on this earth. Will they look to our country's founders for their inspiration, or to those who seek to tear down those foundations for their moment of power? My hope is that they will be wise enough to choose the former.  

With that in mind, we should pray and work to change the hearts and minds of our political opponents, and with the tools of persuasion and diplomacy, trusting God with the ultimate outcome of our efforts and our lives of obedience to His ways. However future generations might judge us, I trust that God's ultimate judgments will prevail.

In the meantime, our current task is to constructively challenge the radicals of our time who seek to undermine the norms of agreed-upon language and reason, people who have consistently demonstrated ill-will toward anyone who would stand in their way. In hopes of changing hearts, constructive engagement with such souls may be an overarching moral and intellectual challenge of our time. May God give us grace, wisdom, integrity, and humility as we fight those battles, seeking to demonstrate and uphold what is right and good, and for the benefit of all.