If you choose for discussion a subject as potentially rich as "Religion, Morality, and Property" but allow a mere thirty minutes for that discussion, the result is bound to be disappointing; in that light, Professor David Bobb of Hillsdale College acquits himself about as well as you could expect. Still, given that no one I know of* is questioning his basic premise regarding the Founders' respect for religion, morality, and property, Dr. Bobb shouldn't have any trouble making the case; and yet he does--have trouble, that is, and to a surprising degree.
The Founders believed that "Duties, like rights, are universal," Dr. Bobb instructs us at the outset, only to ignore that notion for the remainder of his talk; it's certainly an interesting proposition, but apparently not interesting enough for Dr. Bobb to pursue. He goes on instead to rehearse for us the battle over the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights (not "Rights and Duties"), in which James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were aligned against Patrick Henry and George Washington. This is the first time in the "Constitution 101" classes that we've heard of any friction among our beloved Founders, but Bobb brushes it aside, eager to remind us that the Founders unanimously agreed that religious liberty is an "irrevocable right" and that "if citizens comport themselves worthy of the right then it always will be theirs." How a "right" can be "irrevocable" but only on the condition that "citizens comport themselves worthy" of it seems puzzling, but Dr. Bobb didn't notice the apparent contradiction; or, if he noticed it, he chose not to explain it.
Instead, he reminds us that John Locke declared that human beings possess rights even in a "pre-social" (and pre-government) "state of nature". Those rights, as we know, include "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property."^ I for one would like to ask Dr. Bobb (since John Locke isn't around) what "property" even means in a "pre-social state of nature"; with no government to define "property" or to secure it in any way, does it simply amount to "whatever anyone can grab and claim for his or her own"? I'm not convinced that such grabbing and claiming constitutes (or ever did constitute) a valid definition of "property," much less an inalienable right; in a state of nature, it certainly constituted a fact of life, but that's something entirely different. I think that only the creation of government--or a "social compact" of some kind--makes the notion of "property" at all intelligible and defensible in any way other than by brute force.
I did like Professor Bobb's reference to Thomas Jefferson's "three kinds of humilty": "epistemic humility, religious humility, and political humility". I hadn't heard of this trinity before, and I found it refreshing. Unfortunately, it turns out that such humility only goes so far; Dr. Bobb assures us that the Founders firmly agreed on the existence of God (sectarian disputes aside), the religious basis of morality (if a man doesn't believe in God, he'll eventually get around to picking my pocket and breaking my legs), and the need to educate citizens about these "truths". The possibility that they might have been wrong about such things--which, after all, would seem to be what both "epistemic humility" and "religious humility" are all about--might have occurred to the Founders, but it does not occur to Dr. Bobb.
Nor does it occur to Dr. Bobb to explain why, given its stated importance in the lives of citizens and as the very foundation of public morality, religion is never mentioned in the Constitution itself--save for one time, when its use is proscribed as a "test" for public office. Of course, the First Amendment mentions the "free exercise of religion," but Dr. Bobb doesn't tell us why that amendment was considered necessary, or why the Bill of Rights itself was considered necessary, or why some of the Founders in fact thought that the Bill of Rights wasn't necessary--it was actually the "anti-Federalists" who first opposed the ratification of the Constitution and then insisted upon adding a Bill of Rights. I shouldn't blame Dr. Bobb for not explaining any of that; none of the Hillsdale lecturers have mentioned it, or for that matter mentioned the existence of "anti-Federalists" at all.
Professor Bobb can't help but decry, in passing, the "abandonment of federalism" and the "elevation of the Supreme Court to a sort of national school board," which developments, he says, have led to terrible misinterpretations regarding church/state issues. Did you know that when Thomas Jefferson wrote his famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Church--the letter in which he used the phrase "wall of separation between church and state"--his purpose was to validate federalism and not to affirm "separation of church and state"? I didn't know that. And while I did know that, as Professor Bobb properly asserts, the First Amendment makes no mention of "neutrality" or "balance" in matters of religion and does not specify that every public Nativity scene must be offset by a display of Santa and his reindeers: I still don't think Professor Bobb makes his case that the Supreme Court has gone off the rails on this issue. It's true that religion has a role in politics and in public life, and it's true that the Founders did not endorse, much less demand, a "naked public square"; but how much religious clothing the public square ought to be decked out in is a matter of interpretation, which in our country is always a matter for politics and jurisprudence. Just because court decisions don't go Professor Bobb's way doesn't make them illegitimate.**
Finally: "property" can be immaterial as well as material, according to Dr. Bobb. James Madison said that our basic rights, and not material stuff, are actually our most important "property". This is a very ennobling view of "property," but it suffers from the fact that, having invoked it, Dr. Bobb immediately starts talking about "arbitrary seizures and taxations," which would seem to take us back to the material sort of property after all. It's true that the Founders were adamantly opposed to arbitrary taxation; it's unclear, however, why we should view taxation as "arbitrary" when it is imposed through our democratically elected representatives. Dr. Bobb seems to think that "arbitrary taxation" is the same as "high taxes" or perhaps even "progressive taxes," but he's simply wrong; "arbitrary taxation" means imposing taxes by fiat, without a democratic process in which citizens have a voice and a vote. I think the Founders understood that, even if Dr. Bobb doesn't.
Call me a glutton for punishment, but I'm going to try my best to complete Hillsdale College's "Constitution 101". I have, I think, only four classes left; I just hope none of them are taught by Professor David Bobb.
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*Certainly no one in the Hillsdale classroom, which for all we know may have been empty, as the camera never once shows the students. Professor Bobb's soporific delivery can't be helping attendance at his lectures.
^Thomas Jefferson revised that to "the pursuit of happiness," for reasons no one at Hillsdale College either knows or cares about or is willing to divulge. It probably doesn't matter.
**Ask me about this issue again, though, after the Supreme Court rules on Obamacare.
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