A sickness besets American democracy, Robert Tracy McKenzie argues in We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy. The source of the current crisis, he contends, is a “Great Reversal” in the view of human nature that has informed how Americans approach their experiment in republican self-government—a reversal that transpired within a half century of the framing of the US Constitution and continues to infect the body politic to this day.
The Constitution crafted in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 established a republic deliberately designed for a fallen people. McKenzie grants that at least some founders did not view human nature as unqualifiedly depraved; rather, as James Madison conceded in Federalist # 55, “there are other qualities in human nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence” sufficient for citizens to govern themselves. The founders understood that the problem is not that people are wholly evil; it is that they are not reliably good (17). In any case, they recognized that the infirmities of the human character, driven by passion and selfish impulses, “makes majority rule problematic” (18). Although affirming that the will of the majority will generally prevail (at least the “majority” as it was then construed—excluding, among others, women and enslaved people), the founders fashioned a constitutional republic with manifold structural checks on power to restrain a people predisposed to pursue personal interests above the common good.
The founders’ view of human nature, McKenzie writes, is compatible with a biblical anthropology and Christian notions of original sin, although he sidesteps the question whether their dim view of human nature was directly informed by Christian theology. (He asserts that the founders “rarely spoke of sin at all” [74], a claim dependent on the meaning of “rarely” because the founders frequently discussed sin and the need for repentance and divine forgiveness in political papers, such as the many national and state proclamations setting apart days in the official calendar for public prayer, fasting, humiliation, and thanksgiving.) McKenzie makes only passing reference to Reformed Protestant theology, which emphasizes humankind's radical depravity. Most Americans of European descent in the founding era identified with this theological tradition, suggesting a connection between the founding generation's theology and their views of human nature. In any case, the book is less an examination of the founders’ theology than an exploration of their anthropology and its influence on politics.
Within two generations of the Constitution's adoption, a new “democratic gospel” preached by Andrew Jackson and his followers repudiated the founders’ (and Christianity's) view of human nature, replacing it with a populist notion that the people are “naturally virtuous” and reliably enlightened, wise, just, patriotic, uncorrupted, and incorruptible—and “their will must be absolute” (250, 105). This Jacksonian legacy remains in the ascendancy, McKenzie concludes, and this is what afflicts American democracy today.
Following an introduction laying out the thesis, the book begins with an examination of the founders’ views of human nature followed by a description of “The Great Reversal” in the age of Jackson and an assessment of Jacksonian democracy in action as revealed by the Cherokee removal and national bank controversies. Attention is then turned to insights into American democracy gleaned from Alexis de Tocqueville's first-hand observations of American political culture during Jackson's administration. The book concludes with lessons and applications of this history for American democracy today.
McKenzie is a Christian who has written this book to encourage fellow believers “to think more Christianly” about their democracy and politics (21). Although most of the book is ostensibly about developments in the late 18th and 19th centuries, Donald J. Trump is a persistent presence throughout the book, sometimes lurking unmentioned in the background and at other times brought to the foreground for comparisons and analysis. The populist, anti-elitist, conspiratorial, self-righteous, and authoritarian impulses of Andrew Jackson and his disregard of humankind's fallen, sinful nature were the seeds of a political tradition that would produce President Trump and his style of politics. Jacksonianism celebrated the “innately virtuous” and “intrinsically good” populace, while jettisoning many of the constitutional restraints on government power the founders believed were essential for a well-ordered regime of republican self-government (263). The deleterious consequences of this reversal were already evident in the age of Jackson, as apparent, for example, in policies regarding Native Americans, and they were on full display in the age of Trump.
The interpretations of history presented in support of these comparisons will strike some readers as, at times, forced. The author occasionally paints with an overly broad brush and avoids many subtleties and complexities in the story that might challenge or complicate the thesis. McKenzie, for example, largely ignores the religious motivations that inspired some of the political support for Jackson and his brand of politics. Among Jackson's most ardent supporters were figures who embraced a theology and political anthropology much like that which informed the founding generation's view of human nature.
While avoiding “a comprehensive solution, if it exists,” to the political crisis of our times, We the Fallen People concludes with a plea to evangelical Christians to have “less faith in ourselves” and to take “our fallenness seriously” (266, 267). McKenzie urges readers to re-embrace the founders’ anthropology—an anthropology that accords with a traditional Christian view of humankind as fallen and sinful. Christians must view with healthy skepticism the “democratic gospel” that the people are “individually good and collectively wise,” develop habits of restraint, and recommit to the constitutional checks on power the founders fashioned with an awareness of humankind's fallen nature (12).
We the Fallen People offers insights into the political anthropology that has shaped American political theory and constitutional design and the practical implications of a people's view of human nature for politics. It provides a sober reminder of the dangers that await those who would frame constitutions, craft policies, or, more generally, seek the common good without a realistic appraisal of human nature.
