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The Premises of Brownson's Political Theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
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The theorist's attempt to interpret man's relation to man in civil society inevitably grows from and reflects his deeper conception of man's relation to the universe and to God. Consequently, the ultimate meaning and significance of a political theory can be ascertained only by establishing the precise way in which the theorist's world view has been spelled out in his view of the state. In the case of Orestes A. Brownson this is especially true. In the course of his movement from Transcendentalism to Catholicism he elaborated a metaphysic distinctively his: it summarizes his own intellectual history, his basic thought prior even to his theology, for it is the rationale of his acceptance of the Catholic Church. Our thesis with regard to Brownson's political thought is first, that this same metaphysic constitutes the premises on which he elaborates his political theory and, secondly, that the solution he offers to the ultimate problem raised by that theory is theological since ultimately his basic metaphysic gets completed by his theology. Our task is to indicate how this metaphysic and theology determine the fundamental conceptions of his specifically political thought.
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References
1 New England Quarterly, XVIII (1945)Google Scholar
2 Roemer, Lawrence, Brownson On Democracy and the Trend Toward Socialism (N. Y.: Philosophical Library, 1953)Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as Brownson.
3 Cook, Thomas I. and Leavelle, Arnaud B., “Orestes A. Brownson's The American Republic,” Review of Politics, IV (1942), pp. 77–90; 173–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Roemer, , BrownsonGoogle Scholar, ch. 5, develops Brownson's thought on this point. In Brownson, the most concise expression of these ideas is found in his “Political Constitutions,” The Works of Orestes A. Brownson (ed.) Brownson, Henry F. (Detroit, 1884), XV, pp. 546–572.Google Scholar
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7 Works, XVIII, p. 33Google Scholar. See also the essay, “What Human Reason Can Do,” Works, I, pp. 306–323.Google Scholar
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9 Cook, and Leavelle, , “Orestes A. Brownson's The American Republic,” Review of Politics IV, 83Google Scholar, deny that Brownson identifies any such break. But compare such statements as: “If my right of chieftainship grows out of my right as a father, why has not every father in the tribe the same right to be its chief? This question alone shows that it is impossible to deduce the state from the family. I do not regard the family as the germ of the State.” Works, XV, 325Google Scholar. In The American Republic written twenty-three years after the above quotation, Brownson rejects the patriarchal theory of the origin of political authority. Works, XVIII, 24–27: 73Google Scholar. An important principle is involved in this point: authority cannot be explained in any way that gives anyone a personal right to it. Works, XVIII, 24.Google Scholar
10 The Constitution is a “fact” that exists prior to human causality, Works, XVIII, 105–109, 113–116.Google Scholar
11 See Brownson, 's Works, XVIII, 107–109.Google Scholar
12 Works, XV, 562Google Scholar: “The people of this Country [the United States] have not made, and could not make, our political constitutions. It was imposed by a competent authority, and has grown to be what it is, through the providence of God. The people have never had the control of it. It was not their foresight, wisdom, convictions, or will, that made it republican. The constitution was republican from the first, and we established no monarchy or nobility at the close of the war of Independence, for the simple reason that neither was in our constitution.” Brownson rejects all “voluntary and deliberate action of the people” in the establishment of authority. In The American Republic, Works, XVIII, 47–54Google Scholar he rejects “spontaneous” evolution. Ibid., pp. 54–58, he rejects divine establishment through positive legislation. And ibid., pp. 58–66, he rejects the idea that God established the state through the Church. Thus having rejected human causality, and these forms of nonhuman causality, the way is cleared for him to develop his own theory of providential development in which God uses men and circumstances to form nations.
13 The relationship between Divine Causality and human action in producing the basic constitutions is discussed in Works, XV, 356–361.Google Scholar
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22 The question, however, is not ethical, but strictly political. The organic constitution determines such matters as federal structure for the United States, Works, XVII, 560–594Google Scholar. It also determines the general form of government, Works, XV, 562Google Scholar: “the constitution (of the United States) was republican from the first, and we established no monarchy or nobility … for the simple reason that neither was in our constitution.” But he also says, Works, XVIII, 95Google Scholar: “The nation, as sovereign, is free to constitute government according to its own judgment under any form it pleases—monarchical, aristocratic, democratic, or mixed.” But he adds, ibid, XVIII, 96: “ordinarily the form of the government practicable for a nation is determined by the providential constitution of the territorial people.”
23 This is Brownson's most general rule for the evaluation of human action. Secondary causality is equated with the area of human freedom, Works, XV, 355–372Google Scholar. God must achieve his purposes in this area through the cooperation of man. And man, on his part, can achieve his real ends' only by cooperation with God, Works, XV, 389–394Google Scholar. See also the essay, “The Problem of Causality,” Works, I, 381–407.Google Scholar
24 Works, XV, 360.Google Scholar
25 See the discussion of the true basis for majority rule, Works, XV, 339–346Google Scholar. The majority has no intrinsic right to rule. If it does rule, it is by a mere civil agreement. The basic principle is expressed in ibid., XV, 357–358, authority is divine in origin; God rules man in the state. But because this rule must be in accordance with man's free nature, man determines the form according to which rule is exercised.
26 Works, XVIII, 6.Google Scholar
27 Ibid., XVIII, 97–98.
28 For Rousseau, see the Social Contract, Bk. II, ch. vii. For Plato, see the Laws, Bk. I, 627, 628, 630; Bk. II, 671, 684, 691.Google Scholar
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31 In the case of the abolition controversy, Brownson's point was that the case for abolition should not be stated so as to “subordinate the constitution of the United States to emancipation.” Works, XVII, 539Google Scholar. The objection to this is that social order is the basic good of man. Implicit in Brownson's every discussion of revolution is the principle that there is no right to revolt against society.
32 Brownson, offers a concise statement in his essay, “Reform and Conservation,” Works, IV, 79–99Google Scholar. At p. 79, the true scribe, “is one who retains a firm hold on the past, while exerting himself to conquer the future; that reform is progress; and that the true reformer labors ever to fulfill the old, and never destroy it.” In his essay, “The Higher Law,” Works, XVII, 1–17Google Scholar, he develops this position by stressing and perhaps overstressing, in view of his other work, the divine character of the social order itself.
33 One must remember the dilemma thrust upon the contractarians, Works, XVIII, 31Google Scholar: “These primitive men (in the state of nature) have no experience, no knowledge, no conception even of civilized life, or of any state superior to that in which they have lived thus far. How then can they … even conceive of civilization, much less realize it.” This in the course of an argument that progress cannot even begin until civilization exists in its first stage. Roemer analyses the argument in detail, Brownson, pp. 20–25.Google Scholar
34 Works, XVIII, 48Google Scholar. The power of natural reason to grasp the nature of things was vigorously defended by Brownson. His position on revelation and the infallible Church represents for him the attempt at precision in defining that power. See his essay, “What Human Reason Can Do,” Works, IV, 306–323.Google Scholar
35 Brownson, O. A., Essays and Reviews (N. Y.: Sadlier and Co., 1870) p. 399Google Scholar
36 Works, XVII, 10Google Scholar. Almost every political essay of Brownson repeats this idea. The principle of the social nature of man is developed at length in Works, IV, 115 ff.Google Scholar
37 Works, XVII, 8Google Scholar. The same idea is in his Essays, p. 403Google Scholar. This dilemma, again, is a theme in all Brownson's political essays.
38 Brownson, 's clearest statement of this theory is contained in his essay, “Leroux on Humanity,” Works, IV, 100–139.Google Scholar
39 His modifications of the consensus norm appear in Works, XV, 548–549Google Scholar. Three factors are relevant to the modification: 1) the consensus of the individual group cannot be equated with the consensus of all men, 2) this consensus is a norm of practical reason not of speculative, and 3) it is not as trustworthy as the authority of the Church. In his Essays, p. 402Google Scholar, he comes to distrust consensus as a norm because it might imply infallibility in the group.
40 We say “securely and in principle” because Brownson thought freedom and substantial justice existed de facto in the United States. He also thought that this was a de facto situation, and his great concern was to establish a foundation in principle that would sustain it.
41 Works, X, 1.Google Scholar
42 Essays, p. 403Google Scholar. His reasoning runs as follows: 1) no individual can reject the law on his own authority, Essays, p. 401Google Scholar; 2) but when authority is misused it must be corrected, Works, XVII, 6; 3) the correction must be under authority, the authority of God and religion.Google Scholar
43 Works, XVII, 11Google Scholar. Brownson holds that despotism is inevitable in such a conflict, if the state has its way. But, Works, XVIII, 229Google Scholar, if the individual has his way, rule by force rather than law is accepted in principle.
44 Works, XV, 557–558.Google Scholar
45 Works, XVII, 11Google Scholar. However, Works, XVIII, 214–215Google Scholar, he thought that in America because of the perfection of its constitution and its pragmatic approach to law men could retain freedom and justice de facto for a long time.