Ron Paul Believes that our Founding Fathers Were Libertarians. Awesome!!!:mrgreen:
Watch Video-> YouTube- Ron Paul: The Founding Fathers Were Libertarians
Well, I think it depends on which Founding Fathers you're talking about.
When we think "Founding Fathers," most of us conjure up the images of those who fought in the Revolutionary War and who argued and fought to separate the colonies from the British Empire in order to win our independence and freedom. I don't think those Founding Fathers can be looked at with a political philosophy since they were too busy fighting a war to really govern.
Just before the end of the war until a few years after, we were under the Articles of Confederation. This time showed how little power the the national government had, and was required to have more authority. This was granted in the Constitution, which was ratified in 1788.
Now, the American Revolutionary War started in 1775, so the time between then and the Constitution was 13 years. Many of the elder statesmen of the Continental Congress either died, were no longer interested in politics, or had no more influence over politics.
So I don't know if the Revolutionary Fathers can be considered the same as the Founding Fathers.
Then there's the early decades of our Constitution. During that time, there was argument over interpretations of the Constitution and how much power the federal government should have. This was personified in Alexander Hamilton as a staunch Federalist and his primary opposition in Thomas Jefferson, the most prominent Anti-Federalist. So our government was so busy determining customs and the powers of the federal government, along with defending our nation against European powers and native tribes, to focus on that kind of political philosophy.
It's not until the next generation of American statesmen in which we get the likes of Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and John C. Calhoun of the Democratic Party and Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams of the Whig Party that we really see the federal government in action.
In that regard, neither side were libertarian, as the Democratic Party supported states rights free from federal influence but only so they could support slavery and the economic benefits it gave to the South. So while they were against federal authority and favored free trade, they were in favor of statism on a state level with regards to government institutionalized slavery.
The Whig Party, on the other hand, was very much in favor of government involvement of the economy. They instituted tariffs to protect the American economy now independent of support from the British Empire and used those taxes to pay for infrastructure, most notably roads and canals to help farmers take their crops to markets. So in this way the Whigs were not libertarian either.
So no, I'd have to disagree with Ron Paul that the Founding Fathers were libertarian.