Vital Remnants: America's Founding and the Western Tradition

~Vital Remnants: America's Founding and the Western Tradition~ is vital for serious study of American constitutionalism and the American founding. Conspicuous in its conservatism, prudent in its effort to ascertain original intent without crude reductionism, this book edited by Gary L. Gregg, Jr. offers a remarkable breadth of insight on the American republic, constitutional history, and the founding era. The interplay of Christianity, the Anglo-American tradition, the Enlightenment, and the classical tradition in the American founding are all discussed with great clarity, objectivity, and historical elucidation. John Adams observed that public virtue was requisite for preservation of the public liberty, and such virtue could only be in the hearts of a religious people. Thus, virtue too is discussed and its relation to the American polity. The first essay "Is America an Experiment?" by Wilfred McClay points to the uniqueness of America has having not happened by accident, fate, but by calm deliberation its form of government was conspicuously tailored-with the idea of preserving the Anglo-American common law tradition and securing the independence of the many colonial republics by Union. As Alexander Hamilton declares, it "seemed to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force." The later part of the essay brings to light the conservative nature of the 1787 "experiment" vis-à-vis the modern liberal efforts to make society anew through conscious social evolution and the deified Hegelian demigod of progress. The second essay "Founders as Farmers" by Bruce Thorton offers keen insight into the georgic agrarian tradition and its profound influence on the founding fathers and their generation. Hearkening back to ancient Rome at its impetus, and the writings of Virgil, Cicero, and Cato the Censor, Thorton captures how the small freehold farmer acted to secure liberty, independence and political stability. The yeoman farmer was seen as one of the bastions of public liberty and economic self-sufficiency. Every early American President was a countryman. The need for the continual primacy of agriculture was hinted by many from Jefferson to Taylor. Contrary to partisan obfuscation, they were not as quixotic as the ancient Spartans to ban commerce or trade and restrict foreign influence, but merely stressed the primacy of agriculture. Jefferson suggested commerce remain the "handmaid" of farming. Federalists too recognized the vitality of the farmer and small freeholders to public liberty. It was conspicuously viewed as the economic pillar upon which to firmly anchor a free republic upon. Virtue too was cultivated, by the practice of a farmer, who methodically plans, toils, and c

This book is essential for the library of every scholar of American constitutionalism. For those who have studied the subject, the superb selection of essays on different aspects of American political thought is enlightening. Those who are simply interested in America's founding may however be at a loss and overwhelmed by the wide range of arguments put forward in the different essays even if Gary L.Gregg did an excellent job in the introduction giving an overview to the reader of what he should expect in each essay. Thus, since all and even the American constituiton and its origins is a matter of perspective, this book can only be enjoyed after a thorough study of American political thought. For constitution freaks however it is not only useful to have, it is a real joy to browse through the essays.

There is a palpable fear that America has lost its way, and perhaps even been untrue to itself. Examples of this loss abound, from school violence to a youth culture nihilism. "Vital Remnants," a collection of essays by some of America's top scholars in history, philosophy, political science, and law, shows, with remarkable clarity, the ways in which contemporary American society has radically altered the course upon which it was originally set. To be sure, our century looks at America with a different set of assumptions than that of our ancestors. "Vital Remnants" gives us clues by which we might stay the course for the benefit of generations to come.