Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 28

MODERN AGE

statesmen proclaimed the doctrine of separate
spheres and were pleased that it seemed to
stick. The second was westward expansion.
No one in his right mind wanted to risk the
nation's Manifest Destiny in North America
by picking ideological quarrels overseas. The
third was the wisdom of history. American
statesmen in the nineteenth century-unlike
today's ignoramuses-knew the lessons of
Athens and Rome and lived in healthy fear
of an American Alcibiades, Caesar, or Crom-
well. The fourth was the residual Christian
anthropology embedded in U.S. institutions.
Almost all the Framers had believed, if not in
original sin or Calvin's total depravity, then
in their philosophical equivalent, the incorrigible imperfection of human nature. That is
why Federalists were anxious to check and
balance powers, while Anti-Federalists feared
any general government at all. Indeed, a
major check on hubris and adventurism was
the Constitution itself.
Finally, standing above and validating
the prudent traditions and checks was the
American civil religion, which taught that
law must follow the flag so that any peoples
and lands acquired must be accorded state-
hood. Under that dispensation even white
racism served as a check on colonialism. In
retrospect, since we know what happened in
1898, it is easy to build an argument that the
United States was destined to bid for world
power, and probably sooner than later given
the thrust of the Progressive movement.
But it certainly would have surprised most
Americans of the time to learn their hallowed
foreign policy traditions were about to be jet-
tisoned. Just listen to the inaugural address
of Democrat Grover Cleveland, in 1885:
The genius of our institutions, the needs
of our people in their home life, and
the attention which is demanded for
the settlement and development of the
28

FALL 2014

resources of our vast territory dictate the
scrupulous avoidance of any departure
from that foreign policy commended by
the history, the traditions, and the pros-
perity of our Republic. It is the policy
of independence, favored by our position
and defended by our known love of jus-
tice and by our power. It is the policy of
peace suitable to our interests. It is the
policy of neutrality, rejecting any share
in foreign broils and ambitions upon
other continents and repelling their
intrusion here. It is the policy of Mon-
roe and of Washington and Jefferson-
"Peace, commerce, and honest friend-
ship with all nations; entangling alliance
with none."

Listen now to the Republican Benjamin
Harrison, who ran against Cleveland in
1888. The first to imagine the presidency as a
bully pulpit, Harrison preached old-time civil
religion. Thus he took it as axiomatic that
piety, virtue, and hard work were rewarded
with material plenty, but also reminded
Gilded Age American audiences "that it is
not, after all, riches that exalt the Nation.
It is a pure, clean, high, intellectual, moral,
and God-fearing citizenship that is our glory
and security as a Nation."21 Harrison taught
the "good old Biblical maxims" on which
Lincoln had said all sound policy rested. He
insisted America's truly dangerous enemies
were not Great Powers abroad but a lapse of
integrity and purity at home. He believed
republicanism would spread in the world by
"sympathy and emulation" and feared the
harm Americans might do to themselves and
to others should they undertake to extend
their institutions by force. That is why Har-
rison never recanted his slogan:
"We Americans have no commission from
God to police the world."22
Modern Age - Fall 2014

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