One does have to wonder, though, if the main reason they avoided trying to set up a new aristocracy is because they were afraid of what would happen if they did. They had just convinced a whole lot of people to take up arms against the king, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see those same people turning against a new batch of American aristocrats very quickly.
For sure; the founders were an ideologically diverse group of people with a lot of different and conflicting agendas. That said, the influence of some sincere belief in humanist Enlightenment philosophy is impossible to deny, even if it was certainly restricted in its scope. Many of the founders very much intended to abolish slavery, for instance, but it became clear that the Southern states would refuse to join if that was made an absolute condition. There is an alternate universe where two distinct countries were created rather than accepting the continuation of slavery as a compromise, though it’s hard to say if that’s really a better world or not.
My main point is that it’s somewhat ahistorical to speak of the founders a cohesive ideological group at all. “They” weren’t collectively avoiding are seeking much of anything in common; the final Constitution was the result of a lot of very heated debates and compromises.
One does have to wonder, though, if the main reason they avoided trying to set up a new aristocracy is because they were afraid of what would happen if they did. They had just convinced a whole lot of people to take up arms against the king, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see those same people turning against a new batch of American aristocrats very quickly.
For sure; the founders were an ideologically diverse group of people with a lot of different and conflicting agendas. That said, the influence of some sincere belief in humanist Enlightenment philosophy is impossible to deny, even if it was certainly restricted in its scope. Many of the founders very much intended to abolish slavery, for instance, but it became clear that the Southern states would refuse to join if that was made an absolute condition. There is an alternate universe where two distinct countries were created rather than accepting the continuation of slavery as a compromise, though it’s hard to say if that’s really a better world or not.
My main point is that it’s somewhat ahistorical to speak of the founders a cohesive ideological group at all. “They” weren’t collectively avoiding are seeking much of anything in common; the final Constitution was the result of a lot of very heated debates and compromises.