Common Sense Nation. Robert Curry

      

      © 2015 by Robert Curry

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.

      First American edition published in 2015 by Encounter Books, an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation.

      Encounter Books website address: www.encounterbooks.com

      The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48 1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

      FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

      LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

      Curry, Robert, 1944–

      Common sense nation: unlocking the forgotten power of the American idea/Robert Curry.

      pages cm

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-1-59403-826-6 (ebook)

      1. United States—Politics and government—Philosophy. 2. Founding Fathers of the United States. 3. United States. Declaration of Independence. 4. United States. Constitution. I. Title.

      JK31.C87 2015

      320.973—dc23

      2015017131

       Dedicated to my lovely bride, Lisa, and to my many friends at the Claremont Institute, especially Charles Kadlec, Brian Kennedy, Claire Landiss, and John Marini who so generously helped me with this book.

       “The Foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined than at any former period; the researches of the human mind after social happiness have been carried to a great extent, the treasures of knowledge . . . are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the establishment of our forms of government.”

      —GEORGE WASHINGTON ON AMERICA’S FOUNDING

       “The sacred rights of mankind are . . . written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

      —ALEXANDER HAMILTON

       “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

      —THOMAS JEFFERSON

       “Common Sense Realism was virtually the official creed of the American Republic . . . So what was it? . . . The power of common judgment belongs to everyone, rich or poor, educated or uneducated; indeed, we exercise it every day in hundreds of ways. Of course, ordinary people make mistakes—but so do philosophers . . . On some things, however, like the existence of the real world and basic moral truths, they know they don’t have to prove it. These things are . . . self-evident, meaning they are ‘no sooner understood than they are believed’ because they ‘carry the light of truth itself.’”

      —ARTHUR HERMAN

       Contents

FOREWORD

      by Victor Davis Hanson

Preface

Introduction

OVERTURE

      Locke’s Revolution

ONE

      The Founders

TWO

      The American Enlightenment

      THREE

      The Declaration of Independence

      FOUR

      The Constitution

      FIVE

      The Federalist Papers

      SIX

      Religion and the American Enlightenment

      SEVEN

      Turning Away from the Founders

      EIGHT

      Common Sense Nation

      NINE

      A Brief History of “Liberalism”

      POSTSCRIPT

      How to Misunderstand the Founders

      APPENDIX I

      Suggested Reading

      APPENDIX II

      The Declaration of Independence

      APPENDIX III

      The Constitution of the United States of America

      Index

       Foreword by Victor Davis Hanson

      Robert Curry believes that the roots and traditions of the Founding Fathers should once again become common knowledge to contemporary Americans. These are strange times in which all too many citizens are confused about their present culture and government. Ignorance of our own past is largely the cause. A broad cluelessness also exists about how America’s creation has been deliberately massaged for contemporary political purposes in ways antithetical to the views of the Founders.

      In truth, present political agendas seek to remake or obliterate the American past. Even many of those who are familiar with the contours of the American Revolution and the founding of the republic, especially in academia, journalism, the arts, and politics, believe that the late eighteenth-century birth of America was either morally problematic or has—and should have—little relevance for the contemporary United States. Twenty-first-century America, then, to the degree that it is exemplary, powerful, and influential abroad, owes its good fortune more to natural luck—a huge land mass, abundant natural resources, and a large population—in the manner of, say, Brazil, China, or Russia. Even if a nation’s customs and traditions do count, our history is largely the story of an establishment of white males who thrived through the oppression of minorities, women, indigenous peoples, and immigrants, and whose founding principles still can reflect those class and racial prejudices.

      Curry believes that the causes for this epidemic of false knowledge are explainable by the decline of classical liberalism. It once championed the liberty and unfettered expression of the individual, but was absorbed and corrupted by modern liberalism. The latter counterfeit doctrine immodestly assumed the state’s right of almost limitless power over the individual to ensure an equality of result, largely by using government capital and power to change the nature of man. In other words, the Founders’ promotion of the unfettered intellect to appreciate how divinely endowed freedom is innate to the human condition gave way to a government creed embracing secularism, atheism, and agnosticism. Only the supposedly pure reason of self-appointed experts could explain all the mysteries of man’s physical and spiritual existence.