The Founding Fathers and Clio PDF 1954

The Founding Fathers and Clio Author(s): Colin B. Goodykoontz Source: Pacific Historical Review , May, 1954, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May, 1954), pp. 111-123 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3634287 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars,...

The Founding Fathers and Clio Author(s): Colin B. Goodykoontz Source: Pacific Historical Review , May, 1954, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May, 1954), pp. 111-123 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3634287 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Pacific Historical Review This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  The Founding Fathers and Clio COLIN B. GOODYKOONTZ [For many years Colin B. Goodykoontz has been professor of Colorado. His publications include Home Mission (1939). In 1953 he was president of the Pacific Coast B torical Association.] THE MEN WHO FRAMED the Constitution of the United States have been called the Founding Fathers of the nation.* They stood at the culmina- tion of a great movement in self-government, as evidenced in the writing of constitutions in the various states and for the country as a whole during and after the Revolutionary War. James Madison, who more than any other man deserves the title of "Father of the Constitution," declared in the Virginia ratifying convention that "nothing has excited more admiration in the world, than the manner in which free govern- ments have been established in America. For it was the first instance from the creation of the world to the American revolution, that free inhabitants have been seen deliberating on a form of government and selecting such of their citizens as possessed their confidence to determine upon, and give effect to it."' Although this claim to priority might be challenged on behalf of the Instrument of Government in Cromwellian England, Madison's state- ment does call attention to the contributions of the Americans to the development of the convention method of forming constitutions an giving reality to the compact theory. James Wilson of Pennsylvan remarked that to form a good system of government for a single ci or state required the strongest efforts of human genius. How muc greater was the task of men who drafted a constitution which was in tended for many states, some of them yet unformed, and for the "myr iads of the human race, who will inhabit regions hitherto uncultivated." Faced with such responsibilities, men of conscience would naturally draw on all available resources of mind and spirit. Where should th Fathers turn for guidance? At one stage in the Philadelphia deliberations old Ben Frankli * This paper was read as the presidential address at the annual meeting of the Pacif Coast Branch in 1953. 'Jonathan Elliot, The Debates in the several State Conventions on the Adoption of th Federal Constitution... (Philadelphia, 1901), III, 556. 2 Ibid., II, 394. [III] This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  112 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW called for daily prayers, saying, "I ha longer I live, the more convincing pr governs in the affairs of men. And if a without His notice, is it probable tha aid?"" Although this suggestion was cause of Alexander Hamilton's allege was not in need of "foreign aid," ther the delegates to look to Clio, the Mus they expressed it, to appeal to the expe of South Carolina said to his associat of mankind but by experience."' Joh them: "Experience must be our only It was not reason that discovered the of the English Constitution. It was n odd & in the eye of those who are gove of trial by Jury. Accidents probably experience has given a sanction to th It was natural for the men who made the Constitution to turn to experience in order to supplement and check the dictates of reas One of the oldest traditions in European culture was that history h didactic value. Such common expressions as "the lessons of histor or "history tells us," testify to the wide acceptance of Edmund Bur dictum that "experience is the school of mankind and they will learn a no other." To Dionysius of Halicarnassus was attributed the statem that history is philosophy teaching by examples. Cicero called hist "the witness of the times, the torch of truth, the teacher of life." A knowledge of the past, said this orator and statesman, is essential to man's maturity, since he who knows not what happened before he was born remains always a child. The historians, as might have been expected, have generally asserted that their art could and should serve some useful end. If time permitted, quotations from Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, Tactius, the Venerable Bede, Machiavelli, and many others, could be read in support of such claims as these: history can instruct and inspire; it will aid in the interpretation of the future; it is the best of educations for practical 3 Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (rev. ed., New Haven, 1937), I, 451. 4 Ibid., I, 379- 5 Ibid., II, 278. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND CLIO 113 affairs, and especially for political activities; it is th men; it is the judge of mankind; it reveals the movin over the sands of time. These are pretty theories, but h studied the lessons of history in time of crisis? Have the record for guidance? Or, was Hegel right when he s lesson of history is that mankind has never learned any tory? Let us check this generalization by a brief inq that was made of history by the men who drafted and stitution of the United States. To what extent and with what results did the Founding Fathers appeal to Clio? The debates in Philadelphia and in the several ratifying conventions were larded with historical allusions and arguments. History was one of the favorite forms of literature in the eighteenth century. Most of the delegates to the Federal Convention were educated men, and as such were well grounded in the classics; they had read the history of England; they were conversant with the writings of the various authori- ties on law and government. Francis Bacon once said that "histories make men wise." Here were men who had a considerable knowledge of political history. How wise were they? In their appeal to experience the Fathers began with an appraisal of human nature and an assessment of the results of popular government. In the early days of the Convention there was a good deal of talk about the unfitness of the people as a whole to share actively in government. They were reported to be ignorant, passionate, impulsive, irrational; they fell easily under the control of demagogues. Democracy was a word with bad connotations: it signified instability, turbulence, "licentious- ness." Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts declared: "The evils we experi- ence flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue; but are the dupes of pretended patriots."' Gouverneur Morris of Penn- sylvania said, "the framers of this Constitution had seen much, read much, and deeply reflected. They knew by experience the violence of popular bodies."' There were, however, farseeing statesmen among the delegates who had more faith in the political capacities of their country- men and who pointed out that only a government that had the confi- dence of the great mass of the people could long endure; they warned against laying political foundations too narrow for stability. James Wilson, for example, said that he desired to raise "the federal pyramid Ibid., I, 48. 7 Ibid., III, 393- This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 114 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW to a considerable altitude, and for that reason wished a basis as possible."" But even if the masses had been excluded comp in the government, there would have been other pro from certain common human characteristics. All learned and ignorant, were more or less selfish. W about the self-interest and acquisitiveness of the had an answer. "History proves," he said, "that m will uniformly endeavor to establish tyranny. Ho off the evil? Give them the second branch [of the will secure their weight for the public good. The for their conduct, and this lust for power will ev democratic branch, and thus you form a stability in Another patriot of the period who stressed the nec selfish interests was John Adams. He might well framers of the Constitution if he had not been in 17 at the Court of St. James's. No American statesm had a wider stock of relevant historical information or had made better use of it in defense of the new republican constitutions. Adams, realist, urged that men's natural inclinations, including their pride and vanity, be utilized for the public good. He asked, for what do me strive? For fame, attention, recognition. What rewards do they seek A ribbon, a star, a garter. Frivolities though these be, said Adams, "y experience teaches us, in every country of the world, they attract th attention of mankind more than parts or learning, virtue or religion."''o Hence, it was the part of statesmanship to give to men of merit, as Rom did, the outward marks of rank and achievement-a ring, the laticlav an ivory chair, a crown of gold, a wreath of laurel-and thus encourag and reward distinguished service. Alas for the hopes of Mr. John Adams! When the time came to consider a fitting designation for the Chie Executive of the new nation, Congress would not so much as give him title; and so that high functionary has remained plain Mr. President The solution of the political problems that grew out of the huma limitations that so disturbed the Fathers was found, not in the gener disfranchisement of the people, but rather in the attempt to balance conflicting interests and in the imposition of checks on hasty action. It SIbid., I, 49. 9 Ibid., I, 517. "o John Adams, "Discourses on Davila," in Works (Boston, 1850-1865), VI, 241. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND CLIO 115 was intended that the people should rule indirectly through representatives. The temper of the times could be satisfie less than a republic. No other form of government, said The Federalist, "would be reconcilable with the genius of of America; with the fundamental principles of the Rev with that honorable determination which animates every vot dom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity for self-government."" The Constitution was designed genius of the people of America," but what that was cou stood only by men who knew the history of these people. Of all systems of government the one to which the ma Constitution turned most frequently in their search for prec the British. In describing the procedure of the Conven Butler said: "We had before us all the Ancient and modern Constitu- tions on record, but none of them was more influential on Our Ju ments than the British in Its Original purity."" However much a men may have wished for a monarchy, the English pattern could not followed with respect to king and nobility, and there were bou be differences in details even where there was borrowing; but the ess tial safeguards of liberty that had been evolved in England were i porated in or made the basis of the new Constitution. The fundamental of these, with origins that went back at least as fa Magna Carta, was the supremacy of law over government. More the patriots of the American Revolution had reached back into middle ages for the concept of a fundamental law that was above nary statute law. An act against the constitution is void, said Ja Otis in his attack on the writs of assistance. Sam Adams, voicing colo protests against the Townshend Acts, insisted that Parliament ha right to pass such legislation. "There are," he said, "fundamental of the constitution which, it is humbly presumed, neither the suprem legislative, nor the supreme executive can alter. In all free state constitution is fixed." The British authorities, in accordance with the prevailing theory of parliamentary supremacy, rejected this American contention; but the Fathers, when they were free to write a constitution, declared it to be the supreme law of the land. Likewise, mindful of the failure of the colonists in pre-Revolutionary days to make the point that the British empire was essentially federal and that a line of division 11 The Federalist, no. 39. 22 Farrand, Records, III, 3ol. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 1 16 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW could be drawn between the powers of Parliament and those of colonial assemblies, the framers of the Constitution naturally pro for a federal union; they combined central authority and local au omy. There was no great need to cite precedents for these more gene features of the new system; they could be taken pretty much for gran Instead, the specific references in the debates to English constitut history had to do mainly with details of government: the veto power the President, impeachment, the origin of money bills, the wri habeas corpus, control of the army, the status of treaties, the length term for members of Congress and their eligibility for appointment other civil offices. So much attention was paid to English governmen principles and practices, including some venerable constitutional ries, that the Fathers would have discerned the truth of this stateme by Professor George Burton Adams: "The history of the formati the British constitution is a part of our own history. If it be asked w the history of our institutions is to be found previous to the middle the seventeenth century, there is only one answer to the question wh the historian can give. It is to be found in England."'1 Indeed, there h been too much borrowing from the country whose rule had so recent been thrown off to please some of the more democratic members of new republic. A disgruntled poetaster complained about the new C tution: In five short years of freedom weary grown We quit our plain republics for a throne; Congress and President full proof shall bring, A mere disguise for Parliament and King." For the Americans, this English heritage was closely related t experiences as colonists and revolutionists; and nowhere were the l of history more vividly presented. They might have read abou John at Runnymede and about the Glorious Revolution, but th at first hand about the issues of the Stamp Act controversy and t that spread through the land when the Old Bay State felt the s Shays's rebellion. From colonial days they knew the value of c of experience in self-government gained through disputes wit and proprietary governors, of steps towards intercolonial unio the New England Confederation to the Continental Congresses 1 George Burton Adams, An Outline Sketch of English Constitutional Hist Haven, 1918), 4. 1 Quoted in Louie M. Miner, Our Rude Forefathers: American Political Verse, 1 (Cedar Rapids, 1937), 204. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND CLIO 1 17 most in their minds and frequently a matter of comment wer nesses-or, as they liked to say, the "imbecilities"-of the g under the Articles of Confederation. The citations of historical facts in the various conventions range from the immediate past to "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome." There was at the time a lively interest in the classic as shown not only by the curricula in school and college but also by place names and architecture. It was customary for pamphleteers an those who wrote for the press, especially if the subject were contro versial, to sign names reminiscent of antiquity; a letter by Agripp might provoke a reply from Brutus or Cassius. Furthermore, the ancient world furnished many of the models both for republics and confeder tions. Hence the oratory and political essays of the constitution-making period were replete with allusions to the Achaean League and the Am phictyonic Council, to tribunes and decemvirs, to patricians and pl bians. In general, the references to ancient history by the advocates o constitutional change were intended to show that the early confederacies had often failed because of faulty organization; and that they had bee in more danger from the insubordination of their own members tha from the tyranny of rulers. There were other appeals to experience and authority. The historie of three modern confederations, the United Netherlands, the German Confederation, and the Swiss Union, were frequently mentioned, often to emphasize the inadequacies of a weak central government and the dangers of foreign intrigues among the members of a loose union. The opinions of political philosophers and legal experts-Grotius, Vattel, Sidney, Harrington, Locke, Blackstone, Montesquieu-were often quoted. Locke's Treatises on Government presented an acceptable doc- trine: the duty of government to protect the natural rights of life, liberty, and property. The Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu, in its celebrated three-fold division of powers, gave theoretical support to a check-and- balance system. These remarks on the use of history by the Founding Fathers are not intended to minimize their originality and inventive genius in the realm of government. They developed a new form of union and made some remarkably effective new combinations of old political practices. Even as they looked back over the road by which man had advanced politi- cally, they were aware that they were blazing a new path into the future. After the Federal Convention had been in session about two months, This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 1 18 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW the North Carolina delegation reported to the governor of that that it was not possible for them to determine how soon the bu before them could be finished, since, as they put it, "a very larg presents to our view without a single straight or eligible Road th been trodden by the feet of Nations. An Union of Sovereign States, serving their Civil Liberties and connected together by such Tye Preserve permanent 8& effective Governments is a system not descr it is a Circumstance that has not Occurred in the History of m James Madison, always alert to the admonitions of experience, the novelty of the undertaking before the Convention, saying th history of earlier confederations served mainly as beacons which warning of a course to be shunned without pointing out that w ought to be pursued." The men who drafted and passed on the Constitution were not torians; they had received no special training in historical critici so far as their historical information came from books, it probably based largely on general reading. As educated men they had read hist for its literary and cultural values; now, as lawgivers, they turned i practical ends. Among these men two different appeals to history ca distinguished: one, the search, presumably by men of open mind such information as would enable them to decide on a wise course of action; the other, the presentation of facts in support of opinions alr formed. There is no clear line of demarcation between these tw proaches, because it can always be claimed that an opinion now defended had not been formed until after some earlier investig which had been started without bias. However, the use of history argumentative purposes calls attention to a danger that the Father not entirely escape. When history is used to prove a point, how valid, it is open to this question: has all the relevant evidence been sented? A case in point was the contention by the advocates of consti tional change that the difficulties of the country after the Revol were attributable mainly to the Articles of Confederation. So in were these reformers on political defects that they overlooked to a l extent the economic and social causes of trouble that would have been operative irrespective of the framework of government." Again, the strictures on democracy, as noted above, although bolstered 16 Farrand, Records, III, 46. 16 The Federalist, no. 37. 17 Cf. A Plebeian (Melanchton Smith), "An Address to the People of the State of Ne York," in Paul Leicester Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States 1787-1788 (Brooklyn, 1888), 94-96. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND CLIO 1 19 by such expressions as "history proves," seem to have been nothing more than assertions based on prejudices and impr historical evidence presented on this point was drawn to a extent from the ancient city states (where the record was inadequate)' and from Rhode Island. Granted that the Isla gone to extremes in their paper money legislation and des of the opprobrium that was cast upon them, little attention w their critics to extenuating circumstances; and conclusions to the political competence of the people were drawn which m been changed if there had been a fair examination of the larger number of popular bodies over a longer period of ti Another weakness was an apparent belief among certain p there was something conclusive in old opinions and practices; inclined to rely too much on the past. This was illustrated cussion over the proper size of a republic. Montesquieu w the effect that a republican government was best suited to a s tory, while a large empire called for despotic authority. O the new Constitution seized on this opinion as an argume powers granted to the central government, and presumabl if it were to operate vigorously over a vast stretch of lan danger liberty." The obvious answer was made that Montes eralization had been based, in part at least, on the tiny G where the principle of representation was either unknow slightly developed; his remarks, consequently, were inappli United States. True enough; but what neither side in this controversy fully realized was that the whole western world w eve of a revolution in transportation and communication soon bring the hitherto remote sections of a large territory n another in time than were the outlying parts of a small rep ancient world. At the very time the Federal Convention wa John Fitch, "Crazy Johnny" he was called in derision, was ing with a steamboat on the Delaware River. On one occas told, a committee of delegates, having in mind possible pow gress over navigation, watched a trial run-a sign of the comin day in transportation that would make obsolete old notio optimum size of a republic. Despite such limitations as have been noted with respect '8 Jonathan Elliot, Debates, II, 397- " Cf. Cato (George Clinton) in New York Evening Journal, October 25, Leicester Ford, ed., Essays on the Constitution... 1787-1788 (Brooklyn, 1892), 2 This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 120 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW of history by the Fathers, the net result clearly profited from their knowledg from the experience of earlier confed against the members of a union was eith was ineffective against the strong and a a union that was partly federal and pa a federal state that had direct compuls they have done a better job if they ha but it should be observed that the most serious weakness in the Consti- tution as tested by time-its failure to make clear the precise nature of the union and the exact location of sovereignty--could not have been avoided simply by the study of historical records, because history had little or nothing to report on this new form of federal union. One great service that history rendered to the men who wrote the Constitution was in disclosing to them the long road over which they and their ancestors, spiritual as well as physical, had traveled to Inde- pendence Hall. Many cultural trails had come together. One ran back through colonial experience, with such landmarks along the way as the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the Mayflower Compact, and the first meeting of the Virginia House of Burgesses. Another had its origin in England where the Bill of Rights and the Petition of Right signalized struggles for liberty. Other trails could be traced back to Christian principles with respect to the worth of the individual; to Rome and its system of law; to Greece and the early attempts to find answers to ques- tions that philosophers ask; to the Hebrew prophets who insisted that Jehovah desired from His people justice and mercy rather than sacrifices and burnt offerings. History did not enable the Fathers to reach back into the past and pick out some ready-made institutions for their own time. Much less did it make it possible for them to predict the future It did help them understand the situation in which they found them selves; it did light some beacons; and it did record inspiring victories by men of indomitable spirit over "the slings and arrows of outrageou fortune." Much has been written about the conservatism of the Founding Fathers, and sometimes with such emphasis as to suggest that they were reactionaries. They were conservatives; they moved cautiously and with an ear tuned to the voice of experience. They were also men of the Enlightenment, and as such were rationalists; they had faith in the power of reason to provide solutions for human problems. But they This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND CLIO 121 knew that unless ratiocination was based on solid facts it was of little value. History was one source of these facts; experience tended to cur the exuberance of those who let reason ride off on the wings of imagina tion. Why did John Dickinson, as quoted above, warn his colleagues against reliance on reason? Was it because so many of the liberals o the time-the democrats, the humanitarians, the unorthodox, the dev- otees of the idea of progress, and those who professed faith in the goodness of man-all looked to reason as the guide of conduct? One of these freethinkers, Ethan Allen, had only recently issued a book entitled, Reason the Only Oracle of Man. Within a few years another of that persuasion, Tom Paine, was to give to the world his Age of Reason. Reason was the watchword of the radicals; conservatives put more stress on experience. The men who made the Constitution sought to find a compromise between these two points of view. If reason said the people must rule, experience added let it be through a republic but not a democracy; if reason said, the people can be trusted, experience warned that they should give heed to the counsels of men of sobriety and wis- dom; if reason said, the will of the majority must prevail, experience cautioned that the rights of the minority should be protected. The Fathers were conservative also in that they wished to conserve, to protect, their political inheritance. They knew that self-government had been won only after a long struggle. They did not want to endanger it by permitting or encouraging ill-advised actions that might discredit it and open the way for a tyrant or dictator. They may have been un- necessarily apprehensive; but if they had seen in a crystal ball the not- far-distant reign of terror in France and the rise of Napoleon, they would have regarded those developments as examples of the evils they feared if ever the mob came to power. History revealed how the institu- tions that seemed worthy of conservation had come into existence, why they had been passed on from one generation to the next, and how they acquired dignity with age. But history also showed that change has been a law of life, and that peoples and nations that failed to adjust themselves to changing conditions either became stagnant or died. This lesson was not lost on the Fathers. Great as was their concern for the preservation of their political legacy, they drafted a document in which was recog- nized the possibility, or even the necessity, of change. It was open to amendment, and it contained certain provisions so general that further movement in the direction of democracy, even without amendment, has been possible under it through usage and interpretation. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 122 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW As it served the makers of the Constitu mankind find a balance between the expe the vision of the liberal. We of the weste cerned with the conservation, or the def Our democratic way of life is being cha materialism is a threat to our Judeo-Chr tion of the state is a denial of the dignit whose chicanery and deceit undermin respect for obligations on which a stabl real; it cannot be brushed aside by gibes a time for complacency or indifference urgent tasks is the preservation of the g economic, and social system; but how can by resistance to orderly and reasoned ch who hold the idea of progress in such high threads that runs through the whole of insistence on complete conformity to th as it is interpreted by the reactionary m who recall the contributions that have nonconformists will answer in the negativ ment of the principles of fair play and the or innocence? Not unless we accept the i means. Shall it be by adopting the theo condemn? If so, victory would turn to Shall it be by submission to the psycholo ancestors make reply. Shall it be throug inquiry by honest seekers for truth? How the heritage we are defending? And wha freedom of inquiry than the one whose m selves to the service of Clio? The first b bears her name. The first sentence in that These are the researches, that is, the his nassus. History originally meant inquiry history worthy of the name be written denied? Not that the historian is to be ab be subject to the restraint that is self-im Shall the defense of our way of life be thro is concerned primarily with pointing out t unless we have lost faith in the power of D This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND CLIO 123 rations of mankind for a better life, never forgetting t spiritual values even more than material goods. Demo conflict; it was achieved through struggle; it is time positive aspects and to revive the spirit that, for men o tions, made it a dynamic, aggressive faith. There is a broader aspect of this problem of the con heritage from the past that overshadows our immediate cern for the defense of our peculiar way of life as cont other system; and that is the preservation of civili President of the United States has within the month reminded the whole world in the most solemn words of the awful consequenc impending atomic warfare: "the possibility of civilization destro the annihilation of the irreplaceable heritage of mankind handed from generation to generation-and the condemnation of mankin begin all over again the age-old struggle upward from savagery to decency, justice and right." Has history any contribution to mak this hour of peril? Is there time for it to mediate among unfrien peoples and cultures by explaining one to the other? Will the pe or leaders listen now to voices from the past telling how men h learned to live together and to respect one another's rights to diverge political systems, religious beliefs, social and economic organizatio How near are we to the precipice? If close, that is all the more re for urgency of effort to hold mankind back from the abyss. Back, for a moment, to the Founding Fathers and their problem government; they saw that the best way to defend their political sys was to improve it. It was not in vain that they sought the help o Muse of History. History gave them perspective, enabled them be to balance the advantages of the old and the new, and provided th with the information on which they could decide more wisely a the next step forward. These are among history's greatest service mankind; they are still good answers to the old question: What is tory good for? Among its many uses, history has the power, along w religion, philosophy, literature, and the arts, to lift the spirit of man it were to a mountain top from which he can more clearly take bearings in a time of change and confusion. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:12:12 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms