Written by Dale Lockwood   

Does anyone think it too obvious to point out that it''s now a far more complex world than existed in 1787?

A rather wise collection of men wrote the Constitution of the United States in the summer of that year, establishing the only elective republic on the globe, and they penned the document with a bird feather dipped in what was essentially a jar of soot in glue.

The crow quill pen today is an antique tool of artists and calligraphers. Two hundred years ago it was about all they had for writing words on paper. Decades passed before metal nibs became common; decades more before the advent of fountain and retractible pens.

I'm writing this now on a personal computer which allows me to cut and paste, spell chek, change fonts and style and size, delete, edit, insert, and then share with as many people as I wish in a way that would astonish the men of that era. As intelligent and sophisticated as they proved to be at negotiating a political framework that withstood immense challenges over the years, the technological world they inhabited was primitive compared to the one we live in today. Human intellect created the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution for the wonderment of the ages, but crow quill and ink pot was the best tool they had for writing it down.

In the modern context it might sound sexist to say "collection of men" because more than one hundred years passed before women could even participate in politics. There were no paved roads. Electricity was barely understood. Ships moved with the wind and tide. Horses, oxen and foot were the means of land travel; couriers the means of communication. It took weeks for letters to pass between Europe and America, but modern conference calls span the globe. Meanwhile, we debate the issue of high-capacity clips for concealable handguns when the common weapon of 1787 was a muzzle-loaded musket.

Thomas Jefferson's geographical horizon virtually ended at the Mississippi River; Terra Incognita lay to the north and west, to say nothing of the mysteries of Asia, Africa and Oceania. Benjamin Franklin was witness to the first manned balloon flights; today we have unmanned drones, global positioning satellites, and pictures of Earth from the Moon. George Washington's army had cannonballs; today we have smart bombs.

In the field of economics, the new nation was almost purely agricultural (Jefferson preferred it that way; Alexander Hamilton felt otherwise). Adam Smith had only recently published his Wealth of Nations, which revolutionized economic theory (1776; he and Franklin were pals). Human slavery was hotly debated but firmly established and there were bare hints of what was to become the industrial revolution. Hamilton, a futurist and highly sophisticated financial expert for his day, could not have imagined flash trades, derivatives, hedge funds or the huge impact of the limited-liability corporation, a "person" that wasn't born until 1862.

The science and practice of medicine in 1787 was barely changing after hundreds, even thousands of years. Home remedies were the rule; infant and childbirth mortality were high; "bleeding" a tried and true treatment for just about anything. The germ theory of disease was bare hypothesis. The new concept of inoculation against infectious disease was debated, feared and sometimes deadly; anesthesia and disinfectant virtually unknown. Scientific method, in its infancy, had yet to produce the profound innovations we now take for granted. Thousands of examples of progress in this area alone, much less the wider world of science, economics and technology, have made our lives immeasurably better, richer -- and the world more crowded.

Okay, so this is all too obvious. What's not so obvious, and seems necessary to point out here, is that the authors of our government were Progressives. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are, inarguably, Progressive documents. In a world which for centuries had only known hereditary privilege and arbitrary power structures, these men set us on a political path that was entirely new and untried; consciously Progressive.

As primitive as their science might have been, in a real sense they knew exactly what they were doing. Their aim was not to perpetuate some existing ideal, but to commence the pursuit of an ideal that didn't, and doesn't, exist yet.

Case in point: The Affordable Care Act, which was conceived, enacted and approved by all three branches of government, just as the Constitution prescribes. Like so much else, health insurance was inconceivable in 1787, but is freighted with all the complexities of today's science, business and law. After 100 years of back and forth, up and down, our system has taken one more tentative step in bringing society current with modern reality. Progress...

Observers had suggested that the "conservative" Supreme Court might have ruled that the Act didn't pass Constitutional muster. In fact, four of the nine did exactly that. One might ask whether the term "conservative" suggests a fondness for life in the 18th century. Today's judicial arbiters almost concluded that what was good enough then should be good enough now, in the 21st. Would that have honored the intent of the men who came up with our National Foundation?

Reading biographies of the Enlightenment generation that created our system of government impresses the student with the extraordinary degree of insight, and foresight, that they possessed. It's fun to imagine how such learned characters might fare in our modern age. George Washington would be mighty impressed by the aircraft carrier. His Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, would have loved to get his hands on the Federal Reserve Bank. Benjamin Franklin would have made one hell of a mark on the blogosphere, with his witty aphorisms and pointed sarcasm.

But they lived in a relatively simpler age, and far less crowded. The most densely settled areas of the new United States carried about 40 people per square mile, with a total population about 3 million. Today, total density exceeds 87 per square mile, with more than 310 millions. Larger territory. More people. Greater complexity. The third largest nation on the globe; the richest and most powerful. They had a strong hunch about the potential, but this country has exceeded their wildest imaginings. As progressives, if they could see how we live today, they would rub their hands with glee at what their deliberations produced so far. But they might also fret that we are beginning to squander the opportunity they gave us to continue moving forward.

Today's political struggle, as yesterday's, is in opposition to a strengthening tide of reaction, xenophobia and latent tribalism, which is what our Constitution was specifically designed to mitigate. Ironically, opponents of legislation such as the ACA often cite the founders as fellow conservatives, suggesting that such men would object to progressive change. Nothing could be further from the truth. We need to reclaim these men for what they were: Opponents of the status quo.

This is nothing less than a fight to preserve something our founding fathers could not have foreseen, but would applaud if they could see us today: The most successful multiethnic nation-state human society has ever devised.
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At they prepared to adjourn the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin presented a speech which included the following:

"I confess I do not entirely approve this Constitution at present; but sir, I am not sure I will never approve it: For, having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefor that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and pay more respect to the judgment of others...

"In these sentiments, sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults -- if they are such -- because I think a general government necessary for us... I doubt, too, whether any other convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution; for, when you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?

"It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the builders of Babel, and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best." (Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, pg. 457-458)

Perhaps the movers and shakers of this great republic should read these words and consider them deeply. Then, as they debate their acts of governance, they should write opinions out by hand, using crow quill and ink pot, just to get a feel for the way things were...

Dale Lockwood