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Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution

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Just what sorts of ideas were going on in the Framers' minds when the drafted the federal constitution? This book provides great insight into the ideas, concepts and intellectual history and framework that the Framers were operating upon.

An extremely capable historian and writer, McDonald starts out by noting some important considerations facing the Framers: protecting the life, liberty and property of citizens; their commitment to republican government (although there was disagreement and uncertainty as to what that precisely meant); history (in the sense of convention, legacy and their place in its continuing flow); and political theory.

The chapter on the Rights of Englishmen begins with the Framers understandings of freedom, liberty, and property-as inherited through English common law, refined by Blackstone, and developed independently in the New World. Blackstone considered property a third "absolute right," following life and liberty. Of course, he used the word property in the more narrow sense of dominion (rather than the sense of proper as something proper or particular to an individual person). In any case, McDonald discusses Blackstone's qualifications and exceptions to this absolute right, which allowed for the regulation of property (through sumptuary laws, eminent domain, taxation, and the granting of monopoly privileges). McDonald then relates America's experience in light of the English understandings and tradition. The emphasis on property is particular important because, until the Revolution, Americans' general views about liberty were grounded in the same kinds of historical, philosophical and legal foundations as their views of property.

McDonald's chapter on political theory is particularly enjoyable, as he traces the tensions existing amongst the different theories of rights held by the Framers, as well as some of their respective implications. He discusses the appeals made by Americans to natural law as transcending the general norms of English law. A succinct discussion of John Locke's natural law views, which McDonald insists has been "astonishingly misinterpreted." McDonald then proceeds to an interesting comparison and contrast of the two predominant strands of republicanism in America: puritan and agrarian. He proceeds to analyze the "country party" oppositionists as a third influential group and delves into Montesquieu. Many readers will be struck with the differences McDonald describes between the notion of "separation of powers" and a system of "checks and balances"-since most people today describe them as one in the same.

Also interesting is the political economy chapter. McDonald has written more extensively on this subject elsewhere, and it is also the subject of much attention in his stellar biography of Alexander Hamilton. Indeed, the latter part of the chapter is devoted to Hamilton's sophisticated ideas about commerce and finance. The earlier part of the chapter discusses the influence of the French physiocrats, Adam Smith and other early political economists, and continues with an overview of England's experience with public debt.

One chapter is devoted to principles and interests-both those that motivated Framers and (relatedly) how the Framers understood the role and effects of those concepts. Here one finds an interesting discussion of Madison's understanding of factions-made famous in Federalist No. 10. McDonald traces the intellectual roots of this idea, discussing the views of Hume on factions and contrasting them with the Bolingbrokean understandings of republicanism. "[I]t is meaningless to say the Framers intended this or that the Framers intended that," notes McDonald, "their positions were diverse and, in many particulars, incompatible." His survey certainly affirms this understanding (which is also adequately covered in Jack Rakove's "Original Meanings").

A succinct chapter describing the Constitutional Convention follows, in which McDonald catalogues how different groups at the Convention employed the arguments of different political theorists in order to advance their respective viewpoints as to how the federal government was to be constituted, what powers were to be entrusted to it, and to which respective branch they would be entrusted. Much to my delight, McDonald contrasts the understanding of the separation of powers as embodied in the Constitutional document with pre-existing understandings of the separation of powers and the duties commonly thought proper to the respective branches.

Finally, the concluding chapter discusses the powers given to the federal government in the Constitution, and how they operate.

All in all, this is an excellent volume that anyone appreciating political theory, American history and our nation's Constitution should enjoy.

~Novus Ordo Seclorum~ by conservative historian Forrest McDonald is an astute and poignant political history of the fledgling American republic. The framers of the Constitution sought introduce a new concept into the political discourse, namely federalism. They, of course, were all nationalist in the sense that they hoped to strengthen and stabilize a general government. The 1787 Convention hardly started from scratch and was built on the polity existing under the Articles of Confederation. McDonald perceptively captures efforts to balance out the powers amongst the republican institutions through corporate liberty. Each institution jealously guarded their prerogatives as Madison and Jefferson was essentially the prop for the federal regime created in 1787.

The first introductory chapter boldly proclaims that framers had a problem following their independence: that problem succinctly stated was the nature and form of their republic was to take. The framers were unanimous in the belief that the proper end of government was protecting life, liberty, and property. Prior to 1787, they had yet to resolve the scope and role to be played by the general government and it was agreed that that government under the Confederation was scarcely functioning effectively as it was too weak. The second chapter entitled The Rights of the Englishman brilliantly gives a history of the Anglo-American common law tradition that was so cherished by the colonials. It was their go to fortify, uphold and secure the cherished Rights of the Englishman for citizens of the American polity. The third chapter entitled Systems of Political Theory is an exploration of political debates common amongst the framers. They were well schooled in the classics from Cicero to Lycurgus. Likewise, they were familiar with Montesquieu, but opted for prudence and temperance in their statecraft. They eschewed the Jacobin radicalism being fomented across the Atlantic in France by Rousseau and Robespierre. The fourth chapter entitled Systems of Political Economy deals with explorations into political economy. The body of thought delineated as Political economy is simply those "ideas about the policies governments should or should not pursue regarding property relations to promote the general welfare." The bulk of this chapter deals with the influence of Adam Smith on the colonials and the cunning Hamiltonian economic proposals like protective tariffs, bounties for manufacturers and the Bank of the United States. McDonald captures the political struggles that ensued in Washington's cabinet as Randolph and Jefferson fought Hamilton tooth and nail to thwart his machinations. The remaining three chapters essentially chronicle the political developments, debates and theorizing during the Confederation and especially during those pivotal moments in 1787 when the Constitution was being framed.

The breadth and scope of this book is amazing. McDonald gives a great deal of insight on the framing of the American Republic. He does so with a remarkable deal of conservative sobriety and is not afraid to convey his admiration for the American experiment in republican self-government. McDonald gives enormous insight into the debates on jurisprudence, history, political philosophy, and political economy that took place in the pivotal years during and after the 1787 Convention.

I picked up this book to read for several reasons. The American founding era is one of my favorite periods of history to study. I am in awe of our founding father's abilities to cobble a government together despite their socio-economic differences. Don't we all wish that our political leaders today had the same capability to compromise and act on important issues of the day? I am also a great student of finding out the kinds of books our founders read so that I can read them myself. As a student of philosophy, I enjoy studying the philosophical influences on the founders. Aristotle's "good life", Locke's principles of life, liberty, and property in his "Second Treatise", and the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment philosophers like Hume, Reid, and Kames. I can say unequivocally that Forrest McDonald's book does not disappoint.

One fact that I learned was that Alexander Hamilton, while fighting the revolution, was already studying what type of government to put together. He foresees the nub of the problem, "extreme jealousy of power" of men from different socio-economic factions. Hamilton and other leaders will draw on their beliefs in "natural law", civil rights, and property rights. McDonald, astutely points out that the framers of the constitution were well versed in Greco-Roman history, confederations of European nations and republics from history. They used these historical references to support their arguments during the proceedings of the convention, sometimes delivering long lectures on the subject. McDonald also deftly points out that our founders and Americans in general had a long history of being involved in government and politics for several years before the revolution. It is the collapse of public credit that is the main cause of the failure of the Articles of Confederation, and brings these men together for the constitutional convention. They had a long time to study and to put into practice many of their ideas in the colonies. Our founders learn their republican theories from reading Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, Aristotle, Polybius, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and most notably Plutarch, who was more widely read than any other ancient author was. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay using pseudonyms from Plutarch's "Lives of the Ancient Grecians and Romans" sign the "Federalist Papers". I give you this long list so that you too can start your great scholastic journey by reading these luminaries! The founders are also greatly influenced by Joseph Addison's play "Cato: a Tragedy". The play takes place during Cato's final hours of resistance to Caesar. George Washington remarked it was his favorite play and had it performed for his men in Valley Forge during the revolution. Washington and the other founders found in the play a powerful statement on patriotism, liberty, virtue, and honor.

I can go on forever about McDonald's erudite facts in this book, but I will not you need to read it! McDonald is an excellent easy to read writer which makes this book extremely accessible to anyone interested in the history of our founding era. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in political philosophy, and history of the founding era of the United States.

I bought this book based on the favorable reviews below and I was not disappointed. Specifically, I was interested in understanding the original intent(s) of the authors of the US Constitution in hopes of getting a historical context in which to locate contemporary debate regarding methods for interpreting the Constitution. This book gave me much, much more, and in engrossing and elegant prose to boot.

McDonald is erudite and his knowledge has both breadth and depth. As reviewer Nisala A. Rodrigo pointed out, reading McDonald requires some work due to the level of sophistication he uses to explore the 18th century intellectual context. However, I found this text to be a useful and not overwhelming introduction to constitutional history. This is the first book I've read on the origins of the Constitution and I felt I comprehended the bulk of what McDonald was discussing. As Rodrigo suggested, the chapter on the actual making of the Constitution was a bit tedious. However, McDonald was tremendously helpful in providing a sense of the mental horizons and preoccupations of the founding fathers. For instance, I came away with the impression that the founding fathers did not have strong opinions about how original intent should be factored into future decisions involving the interpretation of the Constitution. The founding fathers were focused on substantive issues and the nitty-gritty compromises necessary to get the document ratified rather than worried by questions of hermeneutical methodologies. In fact, I believe McDonald suggests that a question regarding the appropriate role that original intent plays in judicial decisions would not have even been available to the founding fathers given that such issues did not exist at the time of ratification. This insight really helped me to see a bit of irony in contemporary debate regarding original intent - namely that questions of 'original intent' may not have been among the original intentions of the founding fathers.

On a broader scope, I found the first four chapters (pp. 1-142) the most interesting. McDonald sketches the development of political, economic and legal thought in the 17th and 18th centuries in Britain and America. Although he uses some technical jargon he is careful to provide clear definitions so that non-specialists can understand his scholarship. His explanation of the views of Hume, Smith, Steuart and Mandeville regarding laissez faire and the usefulness of self-interest for achieving the public good are simply brilliant. McDonald's elucidation of the political theories of Locke, Montesquieu, Bolingbroke and Harrington, the effects that these theories had on the Constiutional milieu, and the pervasive suspicion of financial institutions and instruments helps to identify the tensions between creditors and debtors, between speculators in land and in securities, between agrarians and bankers, and, in England, between Crown and country. And understanding the competing interests brings into sharp relief the 18th century Constitutional context by defining what was at stake for whom.

In short, a terrific read. Do not be intimidated by McDonald's scholarship - it is manageable and even engaging.

This book is actually the third of a sort of trilogy, begun with "We the People..." in 1958. It should be no surprise that Mc Donald thinks little of Charles Beard. In his earlier work (mentioned above) he did a great deal to discredit Beard's thesis that the founders created the Constitution in order to increase the values of the gov't securities that they held. He followed this in 1965 with "E Pluribus Unum", a work about the political wheeling and dealing that was behind the creation of, and opposition to, the Constitution. He turned his attention to the ideas that were important to the framers in "Novus Ordo Seclorum" in order to finish his career-spanning look at the basis of our government. I my view, the best thing about this book is the way that it is systematically put together. McDonald states the problem clearly early on, and then proceeds to analyze it step-by-step. His placing of the framing of the Constitution in its broader English context is outstanding, as is his discussion of the political and economic theory that the founders had available. But McDonald also makes it abundantly clear that the framers were no ivory tower theoreticians. They were pragmatic, hardnosed political realists who had a good grounding in the best available theory of their day. That combination of theoretical grounding and practical experience has always seemed to me to be the reason that the Constitution was so well crafted and enduring, and McDonald brings that out quite clearly. On another note, McDonald was characterized above as a "conservative historian". It is true that he has supported conservative causes and taken conservative stances throughout his career, but that seems to be beside the point here. McDonald was writing in an attempt to gain understanding about the framing of the Constitution, not to influence current political debate. To often today we look to the founders to resolve our current controversies. As a result people on both sides of the political spectrum have politicized our history in a way that I think leads to an impoverishment of understanding. I admire McDonald for trying to keep the scholarly ideal of detatchment in view, and doing the best he could to live up to it.

Novus Ordo Seclorum was the book I used to teach the Constitution to international students for a US History course. I was amazed by McDonald's intense research and his comprehensive treatment on the topic. Actually he only spends the second half the book dealing with the Constitution and the Philadelphia Convention. In the first four chapters he describes the long tradition of the English constitution, as well as the prevailing ideals in republicanism and the English Opposition which had an impact later in Philadelphia. I especially liked how McDonald debunked some American myths, such as the belief that James Madison was the "father" of the US Constitution, or that Alexander Hamilton was a champion of the free market and laissez-faire economics.

IMHO, the most interesting part of the book was Chapter 7 on the Convention itself. The reader may be astonished to find that there wasn't really a dominant voice or movement which created the Constitution that Americans have revered for 200 years. Throughout the Convention there were competing voices and interests, many long speeches and appeals which ultimately produced nothing, and a helluva lot of compromise. If you think just reading this chapter is tedious, you can only imagine the actual proceedings. James Madison wasn't kidding when he said that the document was "the work of many heads and many hands."

It is interesting to note that even though McDonald spends half the book describing the British theories which came to America and influenced the Framers, he acknowledges that the final outcome of the Constitution and its structure had less to do with these theories than "common sense" and the Framers' prevailing interests (p. 262). One could applaud McDonald for being thorough; however this revelation somewhat diminishes the relevance of the material in the first half of the book.

As a lecturer, I found this book to be a wonderful resource, and it definitely increased my own insight into the theories behind the document. However, the content was a bit too advanced for my undergraduate students, so I just made the last 4 chapters mandatory reading. The book would probably be best suited for an upper-division or graduate-level course.

Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitutuion written by Forrest McDonald is a look at the time and mindset of the Framers of the Constitutuon of the United States. Novus Ordo Seclorum is translated as "A new order of the ages (is created);" and is the the moto on the great seal of the United States and is found on the backside of the one-dollar bill.

I must say this, if you plan on reading about the orgins of the Constitution of the United States, this is a must book to read. I would not make this book my first attempt into this subject though. You need a background of information to really get the benefit of this writing. A look at the "Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Debates, and read some of Bernard Bailyn writings along with some knowledge of the principles involved in the framing itself, ie. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton are just a few.

This being said and a basis of knowledge at hand, reading and understanding the work that was involved in forming a working, viable government that was appropriately balance and checked and refined, lest it become an engine of tyranny; was the task at hand. Principles and interest played an improtant part as we read in the book making the job that much more difficult, but not unattainable. As both a good knowledge was needed of political science and economics otherwise you have no driving force behind your engine of government making it moot.

Dual-sovereignty is another good point raised (States Rights) in this book and the eventual resolution. What I found interesting is that the author is not a big fan of Charles A. Beard's "Economic Interpretation of the Constitution" and he is not alone in that feeling. I found this book to employ the most modern techniques of analyis and uses caution to bear on concepts and information, to bring it in context to this eighteenth-century subject. The Founders left an enormous quanity and variety of written materials, informing us from many points of view what they did, what they read, what they believed, and what they thought. It is up to us to understand this and make imformed decisions.

After reading this book, you will have a greater appreciation for the longer-term necessity as to why the Constitution of the United States was framed as it was.

McDonald does a great job here unwinding the ideas and institutions developed by the founding generation to produce our system of dual sovereignty. He retains a reverence for what our founders accomplished, and constrains himself to an explanation of what happened to bring into operation our "New Order" which now looks quite old.

McDonald is critical of the Charles Beard brand of economic reductionism, and has no patience for the relentless deconstruction of the constitutionalist era by modern historians who insist on showing us that they, rather than these founders, are actually superior moral beings with better insights, as well as more slavish devotion to the current strains of academic obsessions.

This should be on the list of the 10 best books to understand the American system of government.

McDonald's books are absolute gems of scholarship and thought. This one stands out in that it fully explores the contentious nature of the debate between the "founding fathers," and shows them as the men they were -- warts and all -- who managed, perhaps in spite of themselves, to do something great. McDonald shows why a "bill of rights," might be considered unconsitutional, if one is consistent in applying natural law as a foundation to the structure of the constitution. McDonald also provides important currents of thought to provoke inquiry into what the just foundation of income tax could possibly be. This book is a must, for anyone who cares about this country and America's unique place in history.

Forrest McDonald has written some exciting work on the Constitutional era in American history. "Novus Ordo Seclorum" lives up to earlier works.

First, what does he mean by the Latin phrase that is the book's title? One translation might be "a new order of the ages" (page 262). Of this, McDonald says that (page 262):

"So it was that the Framers brought a vast knowledge of history and the whole long tradition of civic humanism with them to Philadelphia in May of 1787, and that they departed four months later having fashioned a frame of government that necessitated a redefinition of most of the terms in which the theory and ideology of civic humanism had been discussed."

McDonald notes that for this "new order," four sets of considerations were important for the Framers as they deliberated upon a new framework for governing, as they moved from the flawed Articles of Confederation to some form that would be more effective. Among these guidelines:

1. Protecting (page 3) "the lives, liberty, and property of the citizenry."
2. A commitment to republicanism (including a role for the people, representative institutions, a distrust of direct democracy.
3. History--including ancient Greece and Rome, prior confederations, and the development of English representative institutions.
4. Political theory, including the works of David Hume, James Harrington, John Locke, Montesquieu, Blackstone, and so on.

One important feature of the debates was, as John Jay and others put it, a sense of urgency. There was a sense that of the Americans could not make republicanism work, then (page 183) "it would not be likely to be tried again anywhere else." There was a sense that the time was special and that the United States could be a model.

This is a very nice work addressing the origins of the Constitution, what was at stake, what went into the debates and the structure of the Constitution.