That was my first thought too, but of course they logic their way out of that with some classic American exceptionalism.
The American Revolution was of a different quality. It emerged from the British tradition of mixed constitutionalism and what Mr. Edelstein calls “radical conservatism.” “Rather than transforming their world,” he writes, Americans “wished above all to preserve the state.” For Adams, Madison and Hamilton pure democracy and revolution remained threats. The American constitution thus sought to manage class conflict and balance governmental powers, both federally and within the central government. Americans, the author avows, were “the last of the Polybians.” The American Constitution, in this interpretation, emerges as an antirevolutionary document designed to frustrate radical progressives. This echoes an anguished cry frequently heard from the political wings, both now and in the past. Mr. Edelstein is at times sympathetic. He writes of the “gnawing tension between our political structures and our political sensibilities” and of a constitution designed to inhibit “swift and extensive political change.” Americans are “moderns living in a world made by ancients.” One can imagine the likes of Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Steve Bannon nodding along.
Shad Ledue