Listen to a presidential candidate speak, tune into a debate on the House floor on C-SPAN or visit your representative’s “About” page on their website, and you’ll notice frequent appeals to true “American values.” Regardless of party, American politicians justify their positions by appealing to a common perception of the country’s founding values. For Democrats — the focus of this article — this vision entails a compassionate, activist government that promotes racial justice, fights economic inequality and, more recently, protects the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers. Both Joe Biden, a fervent institutionalist, and Bernie Sanders, the most anti-establishment candidate in the race, acknowledge “core values” and that “we have historically held certain values.”
Such appeals to the country’s core values are disingenuous. Unfortunately, racial justice and economic equality are by no means founding principles of American democracy. According to cynics, purporting that these values are founding principles actually advances a delusional narrative about American history and may weaken the country’s drive to rectify past wrongs. While this interpretation has merit, when it comes to passing policy initiatives, framing social justice as a core American value is often the best way to increase support for the Democratic vision.
Most Brown students — and most people who paid attention in history class — understand that racial equality has hardly been a long-held American value. The expression “All men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence was not a plea for social equality but rather a claim that white, land-owning men were entitled to robust property rights and self-determination. Even in the wake of the Civil War, Republicans only protected the rights of Black Americans until 1877, when they cut a deal with Southern Democrats to end Reconstruction. The subsequent events — which included mass disenfranchisement of Black people, forced labor of Blacks convicted of minor crimes (convict leasing) and racial terror attacks — left many Northerners unfazed.
Yet today, politicians from both parties frame Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s message of racial equality as one rooted in our country’s core values. But these same politicians — Democrats and Republicans alike — have helped construct a carceral state that locks up a larger proportion of its Black population than South Africa did at the height of Apartheid. America’s appalling track record of racial inequality demonstrates that its founding values did not align with the vision Dr. King embraced.
Widespread admiration of the values enshrined in the Constitution also obscures the fact that the document was written in part to protect the interests of the moneyed elite from those seeking greater economic equality. In the 1780s, many of the state’s farmers were deep in debt to property-holding creditors. In response, the legislature — comprising those who shared the interests of the debtors — printed paper currency and forced creditors to accept the (worthless) money as debt repayments. To rich Americans wanting to maintain their wealth, this was an example of democracy run amok. Thus, the privileged Framers of the Constitution constructed a government that centralized power and established more elite influence in the governance of the country. Today, history classes teach James Madison’s high-minded musings on the danger of factions and the need for centralization as strokes of political genius. And while they probably were, they also conveniently protected the interests of Madison and his rich friends. Thus, any claims that economic equality is consistent with the country’s founding principles are misguided.
Given that the Constitution protected wealthy interests, today’s rampant inequality — exacerbated by 40 years of trickle-down economics, the dissolution of unions and the wealthy’s undue influence on elections — is not a departure from our founding values.
Yet the New Deal was marketed to the American people as consistent with the nation’s founding principles. In justifying U.S. involvement in World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his famous “Four Freedoms” speech, where he proclaimed that economic security — achieved through New Deal policies — was synonymous with the country’s founding values. On the contrary, it is likely that the Framers would have taken issue with a quasi-populist, redistributive campaign like the New Deal. Whether or not FDR’s messaging about American principles successfully sold the New Deal to the American people, at the least it established (albeit incorrectly) that economic equality could be consistent with our founding principles. The New Deal’s success, despite the fact that it actually stood against the plutocratic foundations of the United States, is precisely why politicians should sometimes be disingenuous about the nature of original American values. Today, Democrats can piggyback off of FDR’s message to bolster their arguments for universal healthcare, higher taxes on the rich and defending Social Security.
The same political strategy of projecting current values onto the past can be applied to champion racial equality. Simply arguing to end mass incarceration and reform the criminal justice system may not suffice to sway voters who do not understand the extent of racial disparities in this country. On the other hand, framing policies supporting racial equality as consistent with American founding principles could better mobilize otherwise apathetic voters — because Americans are proud of their country and its original values.
Though using rhetoric referencing the country’s founding principles gives Democrats an edge in arguments about racial justice and economic inequality, it also perpetuates a rose-colored view of American history. To maintain and communicate an accurate historical narrative, history curricula must teach about the context of the Constitution, Indian removal, Northerners’ abandonment of civil rights post-Reconstruction and other unsavory elements of our country’s history. The importance of diffusing an accurate history curriculum does not detract from the political necessity of appealing to the country’s ostensible founding values to create change — even where the values referenced are historically inconsistent with the founders’ intentions. Equating social justice with America’s founding principles to fight racial inequality and break the rich’s stranglehold on our economy is necessary for Democrats to win.
Matt Walsh ’23 can be reached at
matthew_walsh@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to
letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
