...Orestes Brownson rejected social contract theory and suggested that written constitutions reflecting the unique identity of historically-developed human communities—shielding their traditions, habits, and way of life—best-protected liberty. “Forms of government are like the forms of shoes—those are best which best fit the feet that are to wear them,” he observed.[1] Written constitutions must “fit” the unwritten ones. This unwritten constitution, which comprised what Edmund Burke called communities’ “little platoons,” necessitated states’ rights federalism as a barrier against factional government.
By denying social contract theory, Brownson rejected, not James Madison’s perception of factional danger, but his solution in the separation of powers. A social contract was a negation of history and a denial of human communities, or as Peter J. Stanlis described it, “false of historical fact, false to human nature, and therefore false to a sound political philosophy.”[2] Communities developed organically over time and in particular places; government was not an isolated theoretical phenomenon but a continual development under historical circumstances—“history records no instance of a nation existing as an inorganic mass organizing itself into a political community.”[3] Therefore, written constitutions did not go far enough. They must consider “the total historical inheritance” of a community, in other words, its “unwritten constitution.”[4]
America’s unwritten constitution comprised two parts: its “corporate character in civil society within a legally chartered territory” and its Christian heritage.[5] The first was the historical legacy of American liberty. As Dr. Stanlis explained:
The ultimate foundation of America derived from the total civilization of Europe, from classical antiquity and medieval Christendom to its colonial settlements. Like Edmund Burke, Brownson believed that European civilization was a complex fusion of Roman civil law, Christian morality, metaphysics, and canon law, and Teutonic feudal customs.[6]
Second, Christianity “provided a normative critical base against rulers who would play God by wielding absolute power in the state.”[8]...
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Originally Posted by Chris
