The Misanthropy of the Founding Fathers

In today’s society most people tend to think of the Founding Fathers as near perfect individuals who, with idealism in their hearts, created the American Republic. This erroneous view has lead to the creation of populist fringe groups, such as the Tea Party movement, that stress what they believe are the core principles of the Founding Fathers and the concept of small government. These groups’ viewpoints couldn’t be further from the truth.

An example of the Tea Party Movement

Many of the Founding Fathers had a deep distrust of mankind as a whole and wanted to create a government with strong checks and balances to prevent mob rule. Some of the founding father’s, such as Ben Franklin, followed the philosophy of Hume who believed that “every man ought to be supposed a knave, and to have no other end, in all his actions, than private interest.” 

Another Founding Father, Hamilton, said that “Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their passions. There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives. One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are. Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest; and it will ever be the duty of wise government to avail itself of those passions, in order to make them subservient to the public good.” Hamilton’s viewpoint is that it is foolish to trust in the goodness of mankind and that it is more realistic to suppose that mankind is inherently governed by ambition and greed.

Alexander Hamilton

The Founding Fathers believed that in order to set up a stable and effective government it was important to limit the power of the common man. One of the examples of this was the fact that Senators were not elected by the people of the state they were from, but instead by state legislators. 

Another example of the Founding Fathers’ distrust in mankind was the setting up the Electoral College. Instead of having the President elected by a popular vote, the President was elected through the electoral college. The Electoral College is something that is still used to this day and still a hot topic, as seen in the 2000 Presidential Election where Al Gore won the popular vote but supposedly lost the Electoral vote. The Founding Fathers believed that by limiting the power of the common citizen they could prevent a situation where mob rule prevailed.

George W. Bush has the Founding Fathers to thank for his presidency

I tend to believe that the Founding Fathers, who had incredible faults of their own, where incredibly wise in their assessment of mankind. It is my personal belief that humans are inherently untrustworthy, greedy, and have their own interests above that of other people. By not trusting in the people of the United States the Founding Fathers created an institution that has survived to the present day. If the people were given too much power with their voting rights a dictator or oligarchy may well have eventually been swept into power. By limiting the power of the people in choosing their government the Founding Fathers forged a lasting institution that has survived relatively unscathed to the present day. This is a remarkable accomplishment considering the Founding Fathers formed America nearly two and a half centuries ago.