Theodore Roosevelt and Noblesse Oblige (Part One)

(Note: This is the first segment in a three part series introducing readers to the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt (TR), who commands considerable influence over this awe-inspired ordinary citizen.)

Do the citizens of wealth, power and privilege have any public responsibilities to help those who lack such privilege or are less fortunate? Why is there mistrust for the tendencies of the wealthy to form tight, self-protective social cliques? Why are they the more resentful of outside monitoring?

Preserving the benefits of the status quo, balanced against the need for change, even change which is incremental, as opposed to radical, presents one intricate dilemma. In the Revolutionary War fervor, Thomas Jefferson had stated that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Jefferson believed that constitutions ought to be changed frequently to keep up with the will of the moment, that “no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs to the living generation.” Moreover, Jefferson felt that every constitution and every law, naturally, should expire within approximately 20 years.

Later, however, after his presidential term concluded, a more circumspect Thomas Jefferson had refined his views of change with an eloquence that stands the test of time, without rival:

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions.  But laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.  As that becomes more developed, more enlightened as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.  We might as well require a man to wear the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Previously, we saw that it was Thomas Jefferson, who objected to Hamilton’s banking system as flowing from principles adverse to liberty. This was accomplished by creating an influence of the Treasury over members of Congress, inherently susceptible to corruption, and tending to narrow the government into fewer hands and approximate it to a hereditary form. And it was Andrew Jackson, who swore an oath as an obligation of the government to grant no privilege that aids one class over another. Mr. Jackson vowed to act as honest broker between classes, and to protect the weak and defenseless against the abuses of the rich and powerful.

But it was Theodore Roosevelt, who keyed in on the essence of the Jefferson/Jackson lineage, as part of a concept known as noblesse oblige. The term of art is a French phrase literally meaning "nobility obliges." According to this concept, citizens of wealth, power and privilege were balanced by public responsibilities to help those who lack such privilege or are less fortunate. T.R. had been raised in New York City, in a family where the occupation of his Dutch father was listed as an “altruist,” or a “selfless” individual. An altruist had sufficient means, such that he found ways to give away his money for a living.

Although T.R. had come from wealth, there had always been “foreign” elements in him. He had an independent streak, which had never shown much respect for wealth. This streak manifested itself in disturbing differences of will, rather than mere quirks of character, that belied something vaguely traitorous about him. “I find I can work best with those people in whom the money sense is not too highly developed,” he had said. He mistrusted the tendencies of the wealthy to form tight, self-protective social cliques, which, in business, spilled over to combinations in restraint of trade. The tighter each grouping, the more obsessed it became with its own cohesion, and the more resentful of outside monitoring.

(The second segment in our three part series speaks to the great issue which T.R. had identified: to reform the “unnatural alliance of politics and corporations” to enthrone privilege.)

-Michael D'Angelo

Thomas Jefferson's Personal "Pursuit of Happiness" (Part Two)

(Note: This is the second segment in a two part series.

The first segment set forth Jefferson's desire to create the fertile conditions necessary to attain full, unencumbered intellectual and religious freedom of the mind, unconstrained by previous efforts to set authoritative delineation.  Absent these external influences and thus empowered, the mind would exist in a completely and intellectually free state: to master its environment and attain its natural potentialities.  Central was the belief in the improvability of the human mind and the limitless progress of human knowledge...)

What was the primary road block in Jefferson's view to attain full, unencumbered intellectual and religious freedom of the mind?  Did he attack religion, as many have concluded?  Or were his objections confined to religion's propensity to interpose limitations or assume a political character?  Once rid of these issues, could moral sanction be found elsewhere?  Was expert guidance needed?  Did one timeless example stand out?  And what was its foundation?

It can be fairy assumed that the first major obstacle to the freedom of the mind which he perceived was primarily in the sphere of religion and morality and, specifically, the doctrine of supernatural revelation.  Consequently, events which could not be scientifically proven were to be rejected, Jefferson believing that “No hypothesis ought to be maintained if a single phenomenon stands in direct opposition to it.”  Jefferson learned to apply to the Bible and theology the same tests as to secular history and scientific hypotheses, reasoning as follows:

When I was young I was fond of the speculations which seemed to promise some insight into that hidden country, but observing at length that they left me in the same ignorance in which they had found me, I have for very many years ceased to read or think concerning them, and have reposed my head on that pillow of ignorance which a benevolent Creator has made so soft for us, knowing how much we should be forced to use it.

Thus, Jefferson’s only attack on religion was if it assumed a political character, or because it limited the freedom of the mind, upon which the progress of the human species toward happiness depended.  This helped to explain his well known authorship of the Virginia statute for religious freedom.  This statute served as the basis of the right to free religious expression and the separation of religion (church) from government (state) as embodied subsequently by the 1st amendment to the federal US constitution.

Jefferson even went so far as to complete a favorite pet project, highly controversial today as it was then.  He cut out from the Holy Bible’s New Testament all references to miracles, revelation and the slanted opinions of men, which were written later, and in some case much later.  Left were only the words and teachings of Jesus Christ, Jefferson finding them to be “the purest system of morals ever before preached to man.”  He was fully convinced that the “priests” (Protestant as well as Catholic) had “adulterated and sophisticated” the teachings of Jesus for their own selfish purposes.

After he was able to rid himself of these confounding issues, the next main problem was finding adequate moral sanction elsewhere, subjecting his pursuit of happiness only to two significant exceptions.  First, he found “moral sanction in the monitor within every human breast,” and second, he found them “in the laws of nature.”

He looked first to the writings of classic antiquity, mainly the Greek classics, for a body of ethics.  But, he settled on the basic idea that a special moral sense was to be found within an individual’s own breast in the conscience, as truly a part of man’s nature as his sense of sight or hearing, his arm or his leg.  Jefferson thus concluded that “The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors.”

But “for ideals of human relationships and universal benevolence, Jefferson looked higher than” both the Greek and Roman classicists.  He perceived in the ethics of Jesus Christ fullness and sublimity on a plane never attained by a classic moralist.  In sum, to one of the most notable champions of freedom and enlightenment in recorded history, happiness was the aim of life, and virtue was its foundation.

-Michael D’Angelo