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framers were darkly existential in their conviction that neither philoso–
phy nor religion, reason nor faith, love nor grace, can be relied upon to
influence human conduct. Hamilton and Madison likened religious
sects to political factions in their tendency to fanaticism, and they fol–
lowed Hume in preferring a politics of "interest" to a politics of "zeaL"
Looking to the "science of politics" to see humankind as it is, and not
to religion to see it as it ought to be, the Constitution trusts more in the
"machinery of government" than in the morality of humanity to control
power. Religion, in short, could not be counted on as a source of obe–
dience.
The Founders had Europe in mind when distrusting religion as a
mainstay of moral conduct as well as political freedom, and the reac–
tionary role of the Catholic Church during the French Revolution could
well have confirmed their outlook. But after the passing of the
Founders, religion turned out to be progressive in American politics.
The abolitionist movement felt the fire of religious conscience, as did the
Social Gospel movement in the late nineteenth century. The Civil Rights
movement of recent times and the anti-Vietnam War drives also had reli–
gion pitting conscience against evil. But the religion invoked by Martin
Luther King, Jr. involved far more than letting Jesus do our thinking for
us. King drew upon the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr for a realistic
sense of power and the necessity of strategically applying the tactic of
forceful pressure (such as sit-ins) within the restraints of nonviolence.
"Lamentably," King wrote in
Why We Can't Wait,
"it is a historical fact
that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Indi–
viduals may see the moral light and give up their unjust posture; but, as
Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral
than individuals."
Perhaps our politicians need to be reeducated: What Would Niebuhr
Do?
If
politicians had wished to make a case for religion in America's
political culture, they would have stood on firmer grounds citing,
instead of the Founders and Lincoln, the French thinker Alexis de Toc–
queville. In
Democracy in America,
written in the 1830s, Tocqueville
praised religion in the United States because it reigned independently of
the state, remained aloof from the transitory nature of political power,
nurtured the spirit of liberty, offered consolation for the afflictions of
life, and provided answers to the "primordial questions" of existence.
Tocqueville wrote
Democracy
with Blaise Pascal in mind, and that may
explain why he was struck by the country's mobility and the "restless–
ness" of a people supposedly in need of the stable "fixed idea" of God.
