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Narrative Character of ( liristian Social lllilcs
still the case that America, more than any nation before or alter, has been the
product of a theory of government.20 Our assumption has been that, unlike
other societies, we are not creatures of history, but that we have the possibility
of a new beginning.21We are thus able to form our government on the basis of
principle rather than the arbitrary elements of a tradition.
Our assumptions in this respect profoundly distort our history, but their
power is hard to deny. Liberalism is successful exactly because it supplies us
with a myth that seems to make sense of our social origins. For there is some
truth to the fact that we originally existed as a people without any shared
history, but came with many different kinds of histories. In the absence of any
shared history we seemed to lack anything in common that could serve as a
basis for societal cooperation. Fortunately, liberalism provided a philosophi
cal account of society designed to deal with exactly that problem: A people do
not need a shared history; all they need is a system of rules that will constitute
procedures for resolving disputes as they pursue their various interests. Thus
liberalism is a political philosophy committed to the proposition that a social
order and corresponding mode of government can be formed on self-interest
and consent.
From this perspective the achievement of the Constitution is not its fear
of tyranny, or even its attempt to limit the totalitarian impulses of the major
ity. Rather the wisdom and achievement of the Constitution comes from the
guiding “ assumption that only by institutionalizing the self-interest of the
leaders, on the one hand, and of the individual citizen, on the other, could
tyranny be averted.”22 The ethical and political theory necessary to such a
form of society was that the individual is the sole source of authority. Thus
Hobbes and Locke, to be sure in very different ways, viewed the political
problem as how to get individuals, who are necessarily in conflict with one
another, to enter into a cooperative arrangement for their mutual self-interest.
Likewise, Madison assumed that “ the causes of faction are sown into
the nature of man,” and since such causes cannot be eliminated without
destroying “ freedom,” the primary task of government is to control the
effects of conflict. He argues in the tenth
Federalist
essay that the chief
advantage of an extended republic is that aggregates of self-interested indi
viduals will find it difficult to interfere with the rights of others to pursue their
self-interest. Thus, William Hixson argues, Madison justified his understand
ing of our political character on two suppositions, that
the only possible source of public authority is the private need of the
independently situated political actors, each of whom is vested with a
right to act according to self-defined standards of conscience and inter
est, and second, that the only legitimate function of “ the sovereign” is