Vol. 13 No. 1 (January 2003)
THE IMPERIAL REPUBLIC: A STRUCTURAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by James G. Wilson. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2002. 273 pp. Cloth $89.95. ISBN: 0-75462-199-5
Reviewed by Clifford Angell Bates, Jr., American Studies Center, Uniwersytet Warszawski. Warsaw, Poland batesca@mail.uw.edu.pl
If you think Noam Chomsky is one of the greatest living commentators about American power and that Susan Sontag is right on target about the nature of contemporary American politics, then you will love this book. Wilson's THE IMPERIAL REPUBLIC claims to look at the underlying theme of “Empire” in the origins of American Constitutionalism. This book reflects the new-fangled Marxism that emerged after the intellectual collapse of the Soviet Block, typified by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's EMPIRE, which attempts to merge a post-modern distrust of power (appearing more like a form of squeamishness) with more typical Marxist concerns about the current trends of International political economy.
Wilson's IMPERIAL REPUBLIC seeks to show that the concept of “empire” is fundamentally at the root of the American political tradition. Sadly, the book's shrill and moralizing tone often leaves the reader turned off to the interesting interpretations made by Wilson about the Hamiltonian aspects of American Constitutionalism, which saw the desire for “empire” within the American experiment. It could be honestly said that Hamilton sought to create a great Empire to rival all other Empires existing at the time. Agreeing with many post-modern and leftist interpretations of American political and Constitutional history, Wilson states that not only is America fundamentally racist and sexist, but also imperial (4).
Although the primary focus of Wilson's book is “empire,” his bald-faced assertion that the American political tradition rests upon the “two original sins" of racism and sexism forces his hand regarding the tone and direction of his whole book. [Given that he asserts this as part of his underlying assumptions about American politics, perhaps he should have addressed Thomas West's VINDICATING THE FOUNDERS, which makes a very strong chase against such charges.] All too often, Wilson's politically-correct pontificating about race, gender, class, and the failure of America to do justice to these elements, gives the reader the idea that the work is directed to the party’s “true believers” rather than academics interested the underlying thought of American Constitutionalism. This unhappy thought is reinforced by his utter failure to even address the work of other scholars in the field. There is not a single reference to Bernard Bailyn, Edmund Morgan, Forrest MacDonald, or any other reputable scholar whose views on the matter may challenge his own. This is damning enough, but when he does disagree with a scholar it is all-too-often one who echoes his political sympathies but who did not fully embrace the thesis that America had imperial ambitions from the start.
One finds oneself wishing that the author had a more critical editor, a person who would have forced him to moderate the tone of the book and engage with the scholarship that would challenge his very thesis. Such an editor would have helped him to show the need to persuade a skeptical audience of the truthfulness of the overall thesis—i.e., the drive for Empire is an integral part of the American Constitutional character and not an exception to it. An editor who would seek a more evenhanded approach to the study both of Constitutional History and Political History, not to mention a more careful examination of the texts he claimed to carefully study and a greater good-faith attempt to address the wide range of opposing scholarship.
Let us return to the thesis of the book. Wilson attempts to make the case that the so-called "Imperial Episode" of the late 19th and early 20th Century was not a deviation from the Constitutional character of America—as many critics of that period suggest—but something utterly consistent with the American Constitutional system. Why? Because the quest for “empire” has its roots in the very heart of its founding, its national origins, and its very Constitutional system. Wilson argues that the fledging republic and those forces and thinkers, which helped shape the American Constitutional system, desired that the new republic strive for empire. This, Wilson states, must be understood as a drive to dominate and have dominance over others (nations, peoples, etc.). A powerful, bullying America that seeks to impose its will on other nations and the world at large was what the Founders like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton had in mind from the beginning. Indeed, the problem with American Imperialism is not something of the past century but was with the American system from the start. In this way, Wilson implicitly suggests that America was—and is—rotten to its core (i.e., its Constitutional origins).
Wilson's insistence that we must understand the use of empire by the Founders and their generation as essentially tied to “expansion” seems rather jaundiced. As is, he claims that it would be "tedious, distracting, and ultimately futile to attempt to 'prove' what men like Franklin, Madison, Washington, Jefferson, and Calhoun exactly meant every time they used such words [i.e., 'republican,' 'empire,' or 'liberty']" (7). Rather than trying to understand how such men used and understood such terms, Wilson's structural approach arbitrarily imposes a new-fangled Marxism with its understanding of those terms. Thus, what occurs in THE IMPERIAL REPUBLIC is the reading of Wilson's leftist and structuralist definitions of the terms into 18th- and 19th-Century authors who would not necessarily have shared his understanding or his political outlook. Therefore, by not realizing this, he is doing considerable violence to the various texts with which he is dealing. Not only is this suboptimal historiography but also sloppy textual criticism.
Further evidence of Wilson's careless exegesis can be found in how he attempts to develop a "third critical definition of the word 'constitution'"(6). On this point, Wilson consults Aristotle for help: "Aristotle defined a country's 'constitution' as its distribution of wealth and power" (6). For proof of this assertion he refers, not to any text of Aristotle, but to a law review article by him about Noam Chomsky and Judicial Review. To begin, Aristotle said no such thing. Wilson is “pulling a fast one” by attributing it to him and directing the reader to some obscure law review article where we may or may not find the pertinent passage from Aristotle’s corpus. Wilson then goes on to assert that "Aristotle's definition also forces us to grapple with the racial and sexual implications of American empire building" (6). What? How? Where, one wonders, does he get this? We are left without a relevant citation to cross check. Wilson simply asserts such things and offers no proof to support his assertion of a textual claim. Or, he will make a claim about Aristotle and what he has to say regarding a subject (be it the nature of a constitution or defining a citizen) but direct the reader to a book or article by himself or some other scholar (see 50-51). This is simply bad scholarship, allowing the author to put things into Aristotle's mouth, claim he said it, and support that claim by citing another person's work rather than producing the pertinent passage from Aristotle’s corpus.
Even with the many problems that one finds within Wilson's THE IMPERIAL REPUBLIC—especially given Wilson's heavy-handed approach—there is still a ring of truth to some of the points the book tries to develop. Yes, Hamilton thought political ambition and the desire for glory should motivate men to seek empire. Yes, Franklin thought that the interests of Americans were to be found within the British Empire; only accepting the need for Independence when the British authorities seemed intent not to impose Parliament's will upon the Colonists. Yes, Jeffersonian republicanism tended to have an underlying support for a white-supremacy. Yes, the great Compromise that enabled the creation of the Constitution, seemed to lay the foundation favoring westward expansion. Yes, the Marshal court established an understanding of Federal power that aided, not restricted such westward expansion. Yes, Andrew Jackson's policy often betrayed treaties with Indians to aid westward expansionism that tied the populism underlying universal white male suffrage to a nationalist agenda. And yes, Lincoln's stance against westward expansion of slavery was done less in the name of racial justice than helping the industrial North economically against the agrarian and politically powerful South. All of this is true, but it does not necessarily (and so easily as Wilson suggests) show that there was a continual, half-hidden, advocacy of “empire.”
One cannot deny that Wilson amply documents his readings, citing the primary works of the people with which he is dealing. No one can say that he fails to quote from the material he relies upon to prove his contention regarding the imperial character of America. Yet, the problem is one of how we interpret those texts. Wilson seems to argue that we cannot understand the meaning of terms such as “empire” by what men like Hamilton, Franklin, Marshall, and so on, might have meant by that term. Wilson says he does not want to get into “semantic squabbling,” but given the topic he has chosen for himself, one does not see how he can escape from doing so. He bears a certain responsibility for trying to convince the reader that when people like Hamilton, Franklin, Marshall, and others, speak of “empire” their understanding of the term coincides with his own. Wilson makes no such attempt and even scoffs at the need to do so (6-7, 11-12). This is what destroys the creditability of his work. Wilson's attempt to marshal the evidence and make his case utterly fails because the shrill tone he employs undercuts his attempt to persuade anyone not already in agreement with him. His partisan advocacy and his failure to attempt to answer even basic objections to his arguments further hamper his ability to be persuasive.
In the end, Wilson's THE IMPERIAL REPUBLIC has little to offer the student or scholar who is truly interested in the question of “empire” within American Constitutional or political history. At best it offers a rather leftist caricature of US Constitutional and political history that all-too-perfectly echo what the European left commonly says about America these days. When you add in the selective use of scholars, the sloppy textual analysis, the unwillingness to engage his subjects upon their own terms, one can find little of value in this work. Perhaps its only redeeming quality is to get a feel for what the contemporary, radical left has to say about America. Given its rather high price tag, I would advise interested parties to borrow a copy from the library rather than expending personal funds.
REFERENCES
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. 2000. EMPIRE. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
McDonald, Forrest. 2000. STATES’ RIGHTS AND UNION: IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO, 1776-1876. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
McDonald, Forrest. 1985. NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM: THE INTELLECTUAL
ORIGINS OF THE CONSTITUTION. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Morgan, Edmund S. 1993. THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, 1763-1789
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
West, Thomas. 1997. VINDICATING THE FOUNDERS. Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield.
Wilson, James G. 1996. "Commentary: Noam Chomsky and Judicial Review."
CLEVELAND STATE LAW REVIEW 44.
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Copyright 2003 by the author, Clifford Angell Bates, Jr.