The Myth of American Individualism.

• Author: Huyler, Jerome

Celebration of the nation's bicentennial touched off a lively reappraisal of the American founding era. From the events leading to the declaration of American independence in 1776 to the arguments over the adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1787-88, each step in the state-building process was carefully investigated. Yet, despite a remarkable outpouring of research and three decades of debate, no agreement emerged regarding the founders' "original intent." Some progress was recorded. After the published reports of Bailyn, Pocock, and Wood, few historians could cling to the old Marxist claim that material interests and class rivalry alone had determined the historical course. But although most historians acknowledged the power of ideas and ideologies to shape the course of human events, it was still unclear exactly whose ideas and which ideology most completely captured the imagination of early America.

Wood and Pocock, in particular, raised a strong challenge to the standard account that for so long had accorded John Locke's ideas a position of preeminence in the period. Evidence of a very different ideological outlook, a "classical republican" tradition that could be traced to Aristotle and ancient Rome, appeared everywhere in the public prints of the age. Lockean liberalism extolled an ethic of private acquisitiveness, politically protected the natural and inviolate right of property, and allowed wide inequalities in the distribution of wealth, whereas the republican tradition upheld the good of the res publica, demanded public participation -- even patriotic sacrifice -- on its behalf, and tirelessly warned of the baleful effects of economic inequality. Seen from this latter perspective, the individualist proclivity invariably divided republics into insidious factions and so paved the way for political competition, corruption, and dissolution. The founders' republicanism, in short, bore witness to the communal spirit of '76. American patriots fought hard to preserve the public liberty of thirteen self-governing corporate bodies, not the private liberty of so many self-centered citizens.

Before long, however, this challenging revisionist viewpoint itself came under critical scrutiny. The embarrassing problem was that historians who emphasized the Lockean or liberal and those who stressed the civic or republican roots of American democracy could both point to compelling documentary evidence in support of their competing claims. The perplexing reality is that throughout the founding era, liberal commitments and republican concerns continually blended, very often within a few brief...