The Lost Soul of The American Presidency by Stephen Knott

The Despotism of Federalism Why Hamilton was Wrong
Stephen Knott opens his book by quoting Alexander Hamilton, the original promoter of despotism, who, via The Federalist Papers, advocated for a strong central government—like that which the American Revolutionaries had just opposed in the Revolutionary War. It is ironic because, in that opening quote, Hamilton is talking about the risk of despotism, a risk which he made all but certain would become a real problem, as the Anti-Federalists pointed out. Jefferson was one of these, and Jefferson is criticized in the book as a populist president who thought he knew better than the framers of the Constitution. It is my argument that he did know better and that the framers of the Constitution—particularly Hamilton—were power-hungry centrists craving the moment when they themselves could demonstrate the kind of despotism they lamented in their writings. Such despotism is seen all throughout the history of the American Presidency, yet it is when that rare example of a president who represents the will of the people instead of the will of a handful of elitists that Knott makes his objections. That is why he singles out Jefferson and Jackson in particular (he also singles out Wilson and Lincoln—but they were far from populists).[footnoteRef:2] Knott is like many commentators on the Left today: they see the rhetoric of what they take to be an impolitic president; they see vulgarities dropping from his lips on a daily basis; they see a living threat to their politically correct worldview—and they set out to identify him as evidence that the soul of the Office of the Presidency has been lost. They then point to other so-called populist presidents to identify a trend in American history, arguing that populism equates to despotism. In actuality, today’s bloated bureaucracies and governors like Newsom, DeWine and Whitmer exist in echo chambers—their job, in their eyes, being to do the will of the Establishment represented by guys like Fauci et al. rather than to do the will of the people. The people, in their eyes, do not deserve a voice and ought not to be permitted to think for themselves. Such a view is evident in Knott’s Federalist-adoring perspective. [2: Stephen Knott, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency (University of Kansas Press, 2019), xvii.]
Knott begins the book’s first chapter by extolling the merits of the Federalist perspective. There is not even a hint of acknowledgment that the opposing viewpoint of the Anti-Federalists might have been valid—even though history has proven them correct. After all, Hamilton argued for a strong central government in order that it might prevent states’ entanglement in foreign wars. How well has that worked out? America’s strong central government has had the nation in wars non-stop for more than the past 100 years. It is not the little people who want endless war. Wilson, after all, was voted into office on a platform of non-interventionism. He got the women’s movement to support his push for entering WW1 by promising them the right to vote, which they (led by Carrie Chapman) received in return for selling out their anti-war principles. Yet, Knott begins by asserting that the Federalists “understood that moderation and stability have their place and that constant upheaval is not healthy for a political order.”[footnoteRef:3] This opening line is as much an opening salvo aimed at President Trump as anything. What is not mentioned is that President Trump is the first president in a long line of presidents stretching back decades to have gone through a four year term without having started any new foreign wars. (One could argue that his economic sanctions on Iran and numerous other countries constitute an act of war—as libertarian Ron Paul often contests—but in strictly hot war terms, the populist Trump has acted rather undespotically in this regard). [3: Stephen Knott, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency (University of Kansas Press, 2019), 1.]
Knott must suppose that Hamilton misspoke when he warned about a nation entangled in foreign wars as being a bad thing—because he goes on to criticize President Trump in the final chapter of the book as the apotheosis of the populist President (which according to him is something quite offensive). Knott must also believe that most Americans like never-ending wars, or that they do not like having their will embraced by a leader in the White House. Perhaps this is why Knott argues that Trump “has hastened the office’s descent into a media-saturated, cultish, hyperpartisan, public-opinion pandering enterprise.”[footnoteRef:4] Such a blistering critique of course sounds odd to those on the Right who support Trump because to them it describes to a “t” the people on the Left. This is the problem with Knott’s book. He does not see how his own critiques could easily be turned around and leveled at the centralists, the Left, or the War Hawks like Clay, who advocated for the War of 1812—which did a whole lot of nothing in terms of affecting any significant changes at the time. [4: Stephen Knott, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency (University of Kansas Press, 2019), 206.]
What is strange is that in a democratic Republic, Knott should object so much to the idea of a president “flattering a majority and ostracizing an unpopular minority” as though one might expect anything else.[footnoteRef:5] But why would one think that in such a democratic Republic an unpopular minority would be given as much due as the majority will of the people. The problem here is that Knott seems to side with the unpopular minority and dislikes or disapproves of the will of the popular majority. That is what is really at heart of the book and the place from which his thesis emerges. The Federalists were right to oppose demagoguery, according to Knott, even though they were clearly demagogues in their own right—flattering the elite powers that wanted to centralize control that they might more easily affect the social, political and economic outcomes they desired. Knott lays the blame for the beginning of the end of the soul of the Presidency squarely at the feet of Jefferson (who dared to hold an opinion contrary to that of the Federalists—one can hear Knott saying, “Tsk tsk,” as he writes these words): “Thomas Jefferson took the first steps to transform the office into one legitimized by public consent, not the Constitution.”[footnoteRef:6] But what is the harm in this? Jefferson understood the Constitution would be interpreted by the judiciary to mean whatever the judiciary wanted it to mean—and he referred to it as judicial tyranny, which is exactly what it has proven itself to be. The Constitution is alternatively excoriated by the Left when it goes against their sensibilities (2nd Amendment rights?—tsk tsk) and upheld as sacred when it suits them (the framers were not populists! They had everyone’s best interests in mind even though they were not populists! They just knew better than the people what was good for them! Foreign wars for example are good for them—the people are just too foolish to get it!). Such is the underlying line of thought throughout Knott’s work. Compared to other contemporary histories, such as Stone and Kuznick’s, it comes up short in terms of honest self-assessment. Indeed, Stone and Kuznick’s Untold History of the United States at least exposes the problem of the endless wars and does not attempt to invalidate populism. Even something like Ron Paul’s End the Fed has more honest truth and perspective in it—and Paul considers himself a staunch Constitutionalist. Yet Paul also expressed some very populist beliefs—like ending foreign wars, auditing the Federal Reserve, and ending the welfare state. Paul viewed the Office of the President as one that should basically be very small, for it was his belief that people need very little in the way of governing if they are simply allowed to be free, as the Founders desired. It was Hamilton and the Federalists who sought despotism through Federalism. [5: Stephen Knott, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency (University of Kansas Press, 2019), 219.] [6: Stephen Knott, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency (University of Kansas Press, 2019), 220.]
Bibliography
Knott, Stephen. The Lost Soul of the American Presidency. University of Kansas Press, 2019.