In Defence of Monarchy

Abstract

Aristocracy in the Colonial American ImaginationHistorically American opposition to monarchy has beenconnected to a wider opposition to aristocracy. What hascometocharacteriseAmericanattitudestoindividuallibertiesis a long lasting hostility to the ‘idle rich’. In this respect, theThorstein Veblen’snotionofthe‘leisure class’ was an ironicreflection on American social structure; leisure was notofficially an important aspect of core American values. Thedefinition of citizenship in this context came to be associatednot so much with the need for ‘honest toil’, but with theautonomy and self-respect that attended employment as aworker. Judith N. Shklar (1991:67), arguably the leadingpolitical writer on American citizenship, claimed that ‘Weare citizens only if we “earn”’. From a jurisprudentialperspective, there is a necessary connection between rightand duty, and therefore earning an income is crucial ifcitizens are to fulfill their obligations to the community inpaying their taxes, and maintaining a household.However, for writers like Shklar there is deeper moralmeaning to working for a living. In colonial America, thetwo social groups in society not involved in working for anincome were slaves and aristocrats—the former wereinvoluntarily excluded from the dignity of waged work,while the latter were privileged by the inheritance of wealthand could voluntarily avoid the necessity of work. Theaccident of birth either as a slave or as an aristocrat was tobe expunged from the social landscape of a revolutionarydemocracy. The problem of aristocratic privilege is noteasily resolved and for Shklar (1991:85) these attitudespersist in contemporary America: “Resentment of the idlemonopolist and aristocract, and fear of being reduced to thecondition of a black slave, or of a black second-classcitizen, have not disappeared, because they are grounded inlasting political experiences.”The founders of Jacksonian democracy feared thataristocracy could be easily re-established in America andthat constant vigilance was required to prevent such aregressive development. In the European context, aristoc-racy referred to the privileges associated with the hereditaryownership of land and the privileges, titles and status thatcame with it. In the American colonies, it came to meanelitism of any sort, but more specifically it referred to thefew who would scheme and plot to use the powers ofpolitical office against the many. In the 1780s there waswidespread anxiety among country democrats that thewealthy men who sought to run the state would reducethem to a new form of vassalage. These democraticimpulses for social equality were further enhanced by thespread of evangelical influence with the New EnglandGreat Awakening which pitched evangelicals from the ruralhinterland against the Anglican gentry of the seaboardstates. These country democrats joined hands with the‘urban yeomanry’ of New York to oppose any legacy ofaristocratic privilege, including clerical privilege. Forexample, they opposed the draft provisions of the 1780Constitution that required public financial support forCongregational churches (Wilentz 2005: 19). These demo-crats feared a ‘new aristocracy of monopolists andespecially the men who ran the Bank of the UnitedStates’(1991:66) and therefore they assumed there was adanger that the rights of the industrious working classwould be ‘sapped by crafty and indolent bankers’(1991:74). Attempts to introduce property qualifications