From Oligarchy to Republicanism with Forrest Nabors | BRI Scholar Talks

0:00 [Music] hi this is tony williams a senior fellow with the bill of rights institute and welcome to another episode of scholar talks today it is our great honor to be with distinguished scholar forest neighbors and he is going to talk about his new book from oligarchy to republicanism the

0:21 great task of reconstruction so by way of introduction professor forrest neighbors is the chair of the department of political science at the university of alaska at anchorage coming to us from from quite a distance and he previously taught american government and political philosophy at oregon state university and the

0:42 university of oregon prior to becoming a professor dr navers was a high-tech business executive in portland he has remained actively engaged in supporting economic and civic development in his communities and from oligarchy to republicanism won the american political

1:02 science association’s political thought hook award first i want to thank you for joining us and congratulations on the book award thank you very much i i’m glad to be here great great well you know i i really love this book i and and the reason a couple reasons one is i just

1:22 learned so much from it and and i i learned to look at reconstruction uh in in a very different way uh and and your book provides that new interpretation of that really critical period in american history and so i guess where i want to start is uh since your book provides that new

1:43 interpretation what is what is the typical story of reconstruction and and how does your book provide a new way of looking at things yeah thank you very much for that question tony the the received wisdom which comes from scholars on reconstruction is

2:04 that uh if this is a struggle for citizenship in a democracy and that reconstruction is about an attempt and uh the adversaries of that attempt to expand american citizenship so it’s more inclusive and uh that the premise of that view

2:28 is that america is a democrat is you know was a democracy and had been a democracy to use the modern 21st century denomination of our political system and what i’m saying is that is not true we’re missing a great deal that story is not accurate

2:50 because in fact the americans who established the united states in 1776 you’re inheriting really institutions i i mean they they had been part of a monarchic empire um and and that the this upstart

3:14 area of the british america new england is really revolution central in 1776 they want to build a republic and a republican system they break away form this country and then but you know the southern part of that

3:35 new american republic it starts to reform in a republican direction following new england but then something goes wrong and what goes wrong is that the grandsons of the southern republicans they become principled oligarchs

3:58 that’s when you any time you see in the 19th century historical record some one of these statesmen avowing the goodness of slavery your antenna should go up and you should recognize what that means is that they reject

4:22 declaration of independence it’s claimed that all men are created equal they are very clear that that is a self-evident lie to quote one of them and they and america really becomes divided before the formal division when the

4:42 confederacy breaks away and forms its own country the south breaks way and forward that division was hardening long before the it became formal so in other words america was not a democracy uh that that is a simplistic view

5:03 of the country actually a revolutionary oligarchy developed within the bowels of the republic from within and then challenged for supremacy so we ought to see this reconstruction as really the inflection point when the

5:26 victors the republicans and you can use a small r and a capital r that is those who were part of the republican party but remember they called themselves republicans capital with a capital r because they were republicans with a smaller they believed in a republican form of government and they opposed oligarchy they chose

5:47 that name and opposition explicit opposition to what they knew their opponents were which is oligarchs principled oligarchs which means rule of the few over the many which means a rejection of everything that the american founder stood for and unfortunately our present view

6:10 popular present view which is carries over even into scholarship is that america is always a democracy and that and we forget that both black and white americans in the american south at that time were a ruled class

6:33 and that uh you know oligarchs they in in oligarchies human beings are ranked right you see uh gradations of human beings i mean in in any kind of regime which is not based on natural equality and you know you look at the old european monarchies they have earls and dukes and counts and then

6:55 surfs and then you know free trades and you know and these are these distinctions are not just social they’re political uh and in the american south you know americans both black and white were dominated and and in rejection of the principles of 1776.

7:17 i make a very clear end and i would say and you know stance you know for in the uh for the union in my book which i associate them lincoln and the republicans in the union i associate that with they are the defenders of the principles

7:39 of 1776. uh some of these folks who are kind of lost cause neo-confederate types they’re gravely mistaken they believe a lot of i i would say call it scholarly guff that was invented after the civil war um

8:01 and that the the sunny south was some kind of paradise for libertarianism and that is absolute nonsense got to read the primary documents to see how nonsensical that really is it was an oligarchy and the americans

8:21 most americans were living there were a ruled class and they were crushed and their their liberty due to them as human beings and promised to them by the american constitution was denied that’s why we fought that war right and so my next question builds on

8:43 that so so the south is an allergy rejecting the founding what what are those founding principles that that you’re alluding to these principles of 1776 what is the the american regime built upon yeah well i really like the term that michael zuckert uses he’s a professor at

9:05 notre dame um he refers to the american republic as a natural rights republic that that’s what the founders really wanted to establish that is a republic which is defined if we accept james madison’s definition or some of the other prominent american founders

9:26 as uh you know where the people are sovereign this time by natural right so in in the ancient past it was rule of the many uh uh you know and that based on the power of the men the american republic is different

9:47 the american founders they justify the rule of the many not by power but by right which also means something else it means that there are some things the majority cannot do because what gives them what confers

10:07 rightfulness on the rule of the majority is natural rights so that means that there are also some things that you cannot do without undermining the very moral basis of your own rule so in other words you can’t enslave somebody it’s wrong and if you enslave somebody

10:28 or if you deny them of their natural rights then you have forfeited your right to majority rule because majority rule is based on as jefferson and madison they use this term the lex mayor’s parties the rule of the larger part is e they say is the first rule you know first law of nature in in

10:48 governing assemblies of men assemblages of men right and that makes sense because if all are equal then the greatest number the you know of opinions should should govern but you you can’t there are some things you can so the american republic is different and unique and madison says

11:09 at the end of his life that its foundation and natural right is one of the two signal innovations and achievements of the americans for which they ought to be emulated and the second one is federalism and or well actually he says a division

11:32 of power and he means both you know among the great departments of government and most particularly division between uh state and national government so those are the two signal achievements of the american founders and constitutionalism foundation and natural right

11:54 separation of powers and i especially emphasize federalism the division of power between state and national government because so few americans today really understand what that is there are several things that we have to remember about the founding number one is that probably half of the states at the time

12:15 of the constitution’s framing would have been on their own each on its own the largest republic in human history publix had never been big uh and so we ought to noodle on that one for a bit right i mean when we’re thinking about the foundings and we don’t

12:37 the other thing that we ought to remember is that at the time of the american founding i’ve you know if if you um look at the revolutionary era sermons and encomia to the founding and so on contemporaneous speeches and writings

12:58 there’s an incredible theme that we see that comes up over and over and over again which grabbed my attention which is you know they see the american founding as some kind of break with a benighted past you know the novus ordo seclorum the new sacred order why is that sacred

13:19 because their view of history is that in most times and in most places human beings suffered from atrocities by their fellow human beings and that most of the world was governed by tyrants you know monarchs and aristocrats and so on

13:40 and that that is accompanied by all kinds of atrocities so i’ve taken upon myself to see is and that here they are founding something that is going to break from that past where every human being’s life is matters and and where human atrocities are no

14:02 longer possible so this foundation and natural right and a constitutional system that is faithful to that principle is going to break from that past and that nation james wilson predicts is going to also become immensely powerful because people are

14:23 attracted to justice because when people see a just regime a regime that actually can defend itself and is committed to justice true justice they will come a running you’ll get a wave of immigrants who want to be there and they will build the country and they will have babies and they will

14:44 generate wealth because they know they can keep it because the natural right the property is a natural right too and the government is faithful to that it will become rich populous and patriotic that people will love the laws because they understand that according to its own principles that self-love reinforces

15:07 law abiding you know the respect for the law right and so you will see that you will see goodness and justice become armed with power and all of that there are the kind of just fruits of a foundation and natural right and a constitutional system that is faithful

15:28 to natural right it looks like these guys actually have solved the problems that had plagued republicanism for millennia and it looks like this experiment is actually going to work and the civil war reconstruction period really puts it to the test

15:50 right and and that’s really where my next hush comes in and you already alluded to it i think that’s where you’re going is so we have these foundational principles and the natural rights republicanism as you said but then and you’ve mentioned the oligarchy let’s talk a little bit more about that what do you mean by this oligarchy you mentioned inequality

16:10 and a denial of the ideals of the declaration of independence and and these ranks in society how what are the characteristics of the oligarchy uh and how do they found it yeah well first of all oligarchy if you you know your kind of chart of

16:30 regimes your classical charter regimes generally you know you have rule of one few and many and then you have the good and the bad forms which are determined by or the ruler’s ruling for their their own advantage or for the common good everybody in classical to generally accept that i accept that

16:52 aristotle accepts that division oligarchy has rule of the few ruling for its own advantage and not for the common good aristotle subdiv sort of classifies the regimes in another way too and and actually um he basically all all

17:14 actual regimes tend in the oligarchic or democratic direction that is the unjust few versus the unjust many he’s a very serious man hard-headed man who sees reality and doesn’t deny that most people want to rule for their own advantage democracy is the bad form of popular rule

17:37 and oligarchy is the bad form of rule of the few and what they want to do and now the americans in 1776 they try to put something else into place they try to put a just regime into place where the people are sovereign but they’re ruling for the common good

17:58 and all these institutional devices are put into place to prevent them from turning bad and so on and oligarchy uh means rule of the few for the its own advantage and these kinds of people aristotle he talks at great length about them i mean they kind of they feel they they

18:18 feel that they are superior to all and therefore since they are superior they are entitled to everything in society you know so the oligarchic these oligarchs uh you see they they have roots that are deeper than american colonial

18:42 that are deeper than the american founding we have to remember that the colonies in the southern direction were basically followers of you know anglicanism and and you know and uh these you know the monarchy the old

19:03 england the english monarchy i mean there’s a reason why the mascot for the university of virginia is called the cavaliers they were not roundheads okay the new englanders were uh and uh you know they in what you see in during the revolutionary period is an

19:25 upsurge in southern fondness for republicanism they had despised i mean they had lived like aristocrats like cavaliers then they start leaning toward you see large numbers of the the members of the aristocr southern

19:45 aristocratic elite leaning towards republicanism and i’ve seen this curious correspondence between especially adams john adams and these southerners i’ve combed through all of the writings the papers of southern statesmen looking for correspondence with new englanders and

20:08 it’s fascinating because what you see is that there there are significant numbers of these southerners who actually admire new england they want to copy new england republicanism they want to make a new england out of virginia and north carolina and so on and they’re in maryland and they’re doing it in the early national period

20:30 and adams you know like if if uh you know like god surveying his work in genesis looks down upon the south with whom he has corresponded and helped build constitutions and declares his work good right he’s been planting new england republicanism in the south by educating

20:51 them on constitutionalism and so on through the founding period and and we see in late life when he’s corresponding with hezekiah niles about the revolution niles is asking him about the revolution and the we see in his reflections when

21:12 he says that the real american revolution was this transformation when all americans all of a sudden became republi you know but decided that this was correct and right and basically what he’s saying is everybody adopt you know the country moved towards adoption full adoption of our new england

21:32 principles and way of life and system which he had been teaching everybody and but which is very different from his hard you knows pessimism in in 1776 before independence when he’s writing to gates horatio general gates and his wife and he’s saying boy those

21:54 southerners they’re big impediments the only way we’re going to pull this thing off is if we form a union based on republican principles that’s the only way it’s going to work but those southerners they’re standing in the way because as he refers to them the barons of the south well what happens in that early national

22:15 period is that the south does start taking these strides and it was plausible to believe that over time the south would become like new england and we have to remember that slavery the institution of slavery

22:36 was the strongest most significant institution that held up oligarchy and everywhere slavery was planted oligarchy an oligarchy political system would sprout something goes wrong after the early national period all of a sudden the grandsons of the southern founders

22:58 they switch and they go back to they stop republican reform and they end up saying you know slavery is actually pretty good unlike our southern grandfathers who condemned slavery and said we’ve got to end this thing many of whom were slave holders themselves

23:19 we think that it’s a positive good and that the slaves are happy and they love our rule and that we are smarter better faster stronger more handsome and therefore we are entitled to rule not only over the slaves but over everybody because these ruled whites they look and they see

23:39 this ruling class crushing out their american birthright denying them everything including you know economic the ability to to to climb the economic ladder too and they hate both slaves and masters

24:01 they know where the source of their oppression is they know it’s a slave institution and it is and so they they end up and what do they see when they see when they see these plantations and see there would be overlords and so on from their point of view let me describe this let

24:22 me be very careful now because i think their view is mistaken but i want americans to understand how and why they viewed the slaves as they did first of all they all have a distinctive appearance which is different from everybody else third second of all they have been

24:43 brought up in this institution which as franklin would say debases them of their human character in other words you put any human being in that institution and you grind them down i don’t care what color they are their foot size their height their you know whatever who their parentage

25:05 and what their parentage was you put them in that institution it will take half the man away to quote homer and so what do these what do these southern these ruled southern whites see well they see these foreigners

25:26 who have been deprived and who seem to be inferior because in fact they’ve had their they’ve been crushed and so what do you start to you can ruminate about biological origins and also you’ve been raised in this system in which your share of rights

25:50 is commensurate with wealth and this is crucial because in a truly republican society like massachusetts your rights are the same no matter what your wealth is wealth only buys you more comfort relatively more or less comfort relative to your wealth but that’s it

26:10 your rights are the same why because all men are created equal equal respect to what with natural rights and so laws that differentiate rights are unjust but in the south laws you know you give the guy who’s

26:33 wealthier gives the benefit of the law this is how oligarchies always were i mean charles summer even quotes this venetian priest who is teaching oligarchs about the rules of justice saying that you know if a poor man offends another poor man you punish him mildly if he offends one

26:54 of the ruling class you punish him with everything you’ve got in other words why because all men are not created equal and sumner says that’s exactly what these other southerners how they think how they believe how they practice law okay so uh i mean this is the

27:16 distinction between oligarchy and um and and you know and republicanism which develops in the south in rejection of the american founding i mean that’s just so comprehensive in terms of understanding oligarchy and and how it played itself out with these

27:36 differences over slavery and and property and how racism developed i’d like to dial in on that maybe a little bit briefly how does racial slavery leave that lasting legacy of inequality of violence and denial of civil rights for for black americans not only during reconstruction

27:56 uh but well after or really even through today i would say that this is uh those problems um are the growing pains that our country had experienced moving from oligarchy to republicanism

28:20 i say growing pains because you know in under oligarchy human beings are ranked and one of those ranks was demarcated by physical appearance associated with physical appearance but there were other ranks too i mean there

28:41 were lesser nobility so to speak you know the yeoman planters and then there were who were white and and actually in louisiana some were black by the way they were creoles and then uh there and then there are there’s you know the sort of white that and then these other white

29:03 classes so they’re ranked and you know in societies in which which is most human societies that have ever been human beings are so ranked and when basically your natural rights are up for grabs

29:25 because that political society unlike a new england political society does not say okay all your rights are equal under positive law when they don’t do that which is faithful to natural right the idea that all people are equal with respect to natural rights so therefore civil law reflecting that

29:49 principle makes all equal under the law all equal before the law well you don’t get that in oligarchy society and so your rights are unstable you’re insecure well how do you you know so now if you’re rich or poor

30:11 that determines your rights that determines what kind of expectations you can receive from the you know before the law and what that means is that the way for you to get ahead it’s struggle struggle struggle economic struggle

30:31 is not just a struggle for comfort it’s a struggle for for rights and and really strug that society is then defined by struggle and you’re struggling against other groups and you’re struggling against

30:53 other people this is why dueling and murder become such a problem in the antebellum american south and the idea of a guy who can’t back down from a fight won’t resolve it with words it’s not because they were a warrior society actually new england in the founding period is much more of a

31:14 religious and warrior society than the south is they become developed this reputation because of dueling and wanton murder and so why because that’s part of a society in which your rights aren’t stable the only way to vindicate your rights is not by going in front of a tribunal it’s by exerting force

31:35 by personal struggle by gaining wealth by struggle and so what happens when that oligarchy is is struck by an exogenous force which is the union army what do you crack then crack open the oligarchy the ruling oligarchs had

31:57 kept that society from destroying itself through power and for their control once you remove them and the union army comes and they say hey you’re all equal now you’re all free whatever you do you start struggling with each other and that’s where you get sort of post bellum violence

32:18 and that’s all a part of this struggle so it is a growing pain towards natural rights republicanism that was completely unexpected nobody really i mean i won’t say completely unexpected the oligarchs warned that this was going to happen

32:40 um and in fact it does uh you know all of discrimination racism you know paramilitary violence i mean the ku klux klan you know uh report by congress is unbelievable and it’s a limited study uh but that is

33:03 all the kind of vestige and result of the old oligarchy and what we what we see is that this movement or all those problems that we experience is on route to you know a regime that is

33:26 more like a natural rights republic on the the old new england model so a just regime one that recognizes rights one that uh recognizes equality and and so forth yes okay well uh last question so you’re right the first principles of our government teach us

33:46 that none may be exalted above and under or debased beneath another with justice and they prepare us to fly to the defense of each other’s rights when any of us are threatened and with knowledge of them we’ll be able to see each other in a more proper light and tighten our bonds of affection with each other it’s a really beautiful

34:08 sentiment and and how do you think that we can accomplish this ideal uh today in in our somewhat divided world yeah by understanding our past better that’s the short answer right by understanding our past better

34:31 we as a country need to understand and i’m going to put myself out there and be very clear those guys who founded this country were heroes no apologies no exceptions they were heroes

34:52 and they should be un and and you know and the people who bravely stood up to protect their legacy in the mid-19th century they were heroes and the tendency of this country now

35:13 to doubt that is not only unhealthy it’s also false and it’s misbegotten and wrong what those people attempted was incredibly ambitious and incredibly brave

35:36 and they they uh and and really i think if we understand what reconstruction really was and why even our american civil war we as i say it ought to be understood in light of reconstruction and not the other way around that reconstruction is

35:57 a moment when the american founding is tested if we understood as a country what those forces were contending against each other you know a lot of the folks who cast who doubt uh the goodness of

36:20 those folks in our past and their achievements i think would uh would love this country and we would be united they understood the truth a little bit better well forest neighbors uh your book is

36:42 from oligarchy to republicanism the great task of reconstruction and i want to thank you for joining us and for all of our audience who joined us as well if you like this video please be sure to subscribe to our channel and offer your comments below we bring out new content on history and civics

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