The Arc of Justice Runs Unbendingly through Personal and National Character

Abstract

The unmediated character of a citizen body determines the prospects for democratic governing. This essay puts that proposition drawn from George Washington to the test, drawing forth from that example principles by which to assess character-forming statesmanship. We inquire whether the course or track of the nation's existence has been unbending since Washington set it on that path, or whether it has rather run on two or more tracks since that time. National character consisted in shaping distinctive manners and mores among the citizens as a necessary incident of republican self-government and prioritized the attainment of forbearance and justice within the citizen body as the independent variable enabling wise statesmanship and judicious deliberation to provide direction upon such a foundation. Washington so fervently believed this that, in his “Farewell Address,” he reiterated it most powerfully in the pertinent observation that the conduct of national policy must be unswervingly just, as a reflection of the national character. Washington's observation, however, was challenged by Franklin Roosevelt, who shaped the United States no less decisively than Washington had previously done. Roosevelt did so in such a way as fundamentally to alter the national character by fostering personal dispositions inhospitable to the degree of responsibility summoned by Washington. His was a knowing redirection of society toward a conception of human community–and therefore national character–that was self-consciously aware of departing from the “apparent utopia” of the founding. Roosevelt advocated an explicit conception of public stewardship (prior to the cumulative contributions of individuals). This resulted in a conception of individual fates plastically shaped by circumstances beyond their control, requiring efforts to generalize human experiences to be framed upon the application of plastic arts to the subject matter For, inasmuch as national character is derivative from personal character, where personal character no longer inclines or arcs toward forbearance and justice, national character can no longer be predicated upon the preference for justice.