Saturday, February 2, 2013
Holton's Argument
The more I read "Unruly Americans" the more I believe Holton is making an "anti-Founder" argument. By focusing so much on Herman Husband, a man whose proposal was "so controversial it was never actually introduced in Congress or any other state legislature," as well as others, I get the sense that Holton is building a counter-narrative to the reverence toward the nation's Founders. Am I wrong in seeing this book (so far) as an anti-Founder, and by extension, anti-Constitution argument? Anti-constitution in the sense that what the "unruly Americans" were fighting for was not the Constitution's purpose, but something else entirely?
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I would agree that Holton definitely wants to make the point that the Constitution's foundings are with less than noble purposes. I don't know, however, if I would go so far as to say his book is "anti-Founder". I think he clearly tries to balance the multiple reasons why the Founding Fathers desired a Constitution in the first place, revealing both practical, sensible reasons, and also reasons that had to do with self-gain and self-serving purposes.
ReplyDeleteI think this ties back in very well with our discussion with Wood if the American Revolution was truly radical. Many of us in the class said that the Revolution was radical, but in no way was it what the Founding Fathers had intended. I find it interesting that once again many of the Founding Fathers have a much different set of beliefs and ideas that motivate and fuel their reasons for the Constitution, and that these beliefs are much different than the people that they are supposed to represent.
I like "counter narrative" as a theme here. "Anti Founder" may stretch, but why not? I don't think that Wood's quiet celebration of the Founders squares with Holton's vocal celebration of the democratic masses. Just sayin.
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