Modern Age - Summer 2016 - 103

REVIEWS

Before we examine the common ground found in Murray's book,
we ought to clarify the biggest difference between his libertarian
interpretation of America and the conservative understanding.
Murray refers to "the American project," which he explains began
"with the founding" and was a "project" to "demonstrate that
human beings can be left free as individuals, families and communities to live their lives as they see fit as long as they accord the
same freedom to everyone else."
Here we have an interpretation of the American Founding in
which a small group of men "broke with history" in order to test
the libertarian hypothesis. This is not only simplistic history; it is
wrong in a fundamental way. Governing innovations were plentiful in the period from 1776 to 1789, but they were of the sort that
emerged from two facts. First, the break with England necessitated new institutions and arrangements to replace the governing
structures that rested on the sovereignty of the Crown. Second,
diverse social orders and competing nodes of authority (mainly
from the states) required that any national government would be
the product of great compromise. There could be no "project" in
the way that Murray uses the word, because no group had the
power to impose a single vision on the new nation.
We can be thankful that America was not founded as a project
(which is to say on an ideology), since the roots of the American
order are deep, solid, and principled, and they provided the
Founders with the English habit of relying on experience to guide
innovation. Each of the key principled themes in the U.S. Constitution has a long pedigree: the idea of a limited government;
the consent of the people; a "balanced" government that checks
powers within; and the importance of citizen participation. These,
along with the English common law tradition (the significance of
moder nagejour nal .com

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Modern Age - Summer 2016

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