524. Influence of Confucianim on the United States

 

The influence of Confucianism on East Asia has been widely recognized, however, its influence on the United States has been rarely known. Dr. Dave Wang will conduct a  workshop that will introduce the influence of Confucianism on the United States on January 27, 2018. More information regarding the workshop is available here.

Dr. Dave Wang will talk the following topics:

1. How Confucianism had an impact on the founders when they worked for cultivating new virtue for the new nation.

2.He also examines the process that the US government adopted Chinese civil service examination system in order to overcome political corruption in the 19th century.

3.In the meantime, Dr. Wang will demonstrate the influence of Confucianism on the agricultural management before the Second World War and Confucianism’s impact on US legal debates.

Through this workshop, you will have basic conception on the positive impact of Confucianism on the development of the United States.


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Dr. Dave Wang is Manager of Queens Library at Laurelton and Adjunct Professor, St. Johns University. He has studied the influence of Chinese traditional culture on the history of the United States for many years. His academic articles, such as “Ideas from the East, The Founders of the United States and Chinese Wisdom,” “Benjamin Franklin and China, ---A Survey of Benjamin Franklin’s Efforts at Drawing Positive Elements from Chinese Civilization during the Formative Age of the United States” were published by various academic journals in the United States, Japan, India and Europe, such as The Virginia Review of Asian Studies , Asia Times and other journals. Some of his articles have been adopted as history text by various graduate schools, universities, and high schools in the United States for their culture and history courses. Some famous scholars and writers have often quoted his articles in their publications.

507.Benjamin Franklin and Confucian Merit System

During the 1780s, the founders of the young American republic faced the tremendous challenge of creating a stable political system to preserve their hard-earned national independence. Soon after the conclusion of the War for Independence, the Founding Fathers realized that the election of capable public servants would be one of the major factors that determined the destiny of their new nation. Many of the founders believed that the ideal government official would not only have a strong educational background, but also display exemplary moral virtue.[1]

However, this sentiment was not shared by all citizens; in particular, some veterans of the War for Independence sought to establish certain systems that would enable them to pass their honors to their descendants. In 1783, these veterans organized the Society of Cincinnati to counter the prevailing beliefs of the founders.[2] Benjamin Franklin expressed uneasiness with the Society’s desire to mimic the European hereditary tradition by forming “an order of hereditary knights.”[3] Franklin wrote,

My Opinion of the Institution cannot be of much Importance. I only wonder that when the united Wisdom of our Nation had, in the Articles of Confederation, manifested their Dislike of establishing Ranks of Nobility, by Authority either of the Congress or of any particular State, a Number of private Persons should think proper to distinguish themselves and their Posterity from their Fellow Citizens, and form an Order of hereditary Knights, in direct Opposition to the solemnly declared Sense of their Country.[4]

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[1] U.S. Office of Personnel Management https://archive.opm.gov/about_opm/tr/history.asp

[2] http://www.societyofthecincinnati.org/

[3] Benjamin Franklin, To Sarah Bache (unpublished), Passy, January, 26^th, 1784. It is available on line at http://franklinpapers.org

[4] Ibid.

505 The US Dosn't Understand Chinese Thought, Really?

Mr. Jeffrey Bingham Mead, the President of History Education Council of Hawaii State, sent me an article yesterday, Why the US Doesn’t Understand Chinese Thought – and Must..The writer of this article says, as a scholar of Chinese philosophy, he believes it’s at least as important to understand how China thinks. I totally agree with him. More importantly, the main founders of the United States agreed with him when this country was established.

Its author is Bryan W. Van Norden. According to him that universities in the United States should teach Chinese civilization. Clearly, it is well understood that Americans need to understand Chinese ideas. However, readers of this blog and Dr. Dave Wang's publications have been fully aware of Chinese cultural influence on the founding of the United States. During the formative age of this nation, the founders, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and others worked hard to borrow from Confucius moral principles in their efforts to start new virtue of the new nation.

502. Dr. Dave Wang's Gift for Celebration of the Independence Day

I was a little bit busier yesterday, July 4, 2017. Therefore I post it this post today to celebrate the 241st anniversary of the founding of the United States. Please don't feel surprised at reading Dr. Wang's paper of examining the founders' efforts to introduce Confucius moral principles in the time of unfolding the history of the United States. In the following please find the open paragraph of his paper:

Confucius and the founding of the United States don’t seem to be related. Confucius, the Latinized name of Kongzi (孔子) (c. 550-476 B.C.), was a great philosopher and educator who lived at the end of “the Spring and Autumn Period” (771-476 B.C.) in China. The founding of America in the 1770s was a period in which the founders of the United States waged their death-or-life struggle to overthrow the imperialist rule of the Great Britain.  However, despite their differences, a close relationship actually existed between them. The United States’ founders applied many values from Confucian moral philosophy while founding of the United States.[1] Their recognition of Confucian ideas can be seen in places such as the house of James Madison (1751-1836), the father of the Constitution and the Bill ofRights, which had a portrait of Confucius. In addition, Thomas Paine (1737-1809), author of Common Sense, considered the Chinese sage to be in the same category as Jesus and Socrates.^[2] Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), the Creator of the American Spirit, made the solemn statement that Confucian moral philosophy was valuable to the human being in general.[3] Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, also promoted Confucian moral principles in his inaugural speech in 1801. In his personal scratch-book, Jefferson placed a poem about an ideal Chinese prince that was recommended by Confucius. Other founders such as John Adams (1735-1826) and Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) also regarded Confucius highly in their efforts to make a blueprint for the new nation. These founders urged the citizens of the United States to adopt positive elements from Confucian moral philosophy and follow these moral examples to cultivate and advance their own virtues

 

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[1] Dave Wang, The US Founders and China: The Origins of Chinese Cultural Influence on the United States, Education About Asia, Fall, 2011, pp.5-11.

[2] http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2010/03/confucius-baseball-and-apple-pie.html

[3] Benjamin Franklin, Letter to George Whitefield, July 6, 1749. It is available on line at  http://www.historycarper.com/1749/07/06/the-example-of-confucius 

501. Benjamin Franklin and Confucian Merit System

Most Western countries today have adopted some form of the Confucian merit system, one of China’s greatest contributions to modern democracy. Interestingly enough, despite now being one of the cultural icons of the West, the United States adopted the Confucian system later than many of its European peers.[1] It was only in 1884 that Congress passed the Pendleton Act, alternatively known as the Civil Service Reform Act, which initiated a long-overdue reform of the US civil service system. The passage of the Pendleton Act marked the US federal government’s embracement of the Confucian merit system.  Although the passage of the Pendleton Act represented the first time the Confucian system gained legal credence within the United States, it was not the first time such a change had been suggested. About a century earlier, American “Founding Father” Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) had proposed that the fledging nation look to the ancient Chinese merit system for selecting public servants.

For more information concerning the topic one can read Dr. Dave Wang's paper,

A JOURNEY OF ADOPTING THE CONFUCIAN MERIT SYSTEM:  FROM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TO THE PENDLETON ACT OF 1883

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[1] History of Civil Service Merit System of the United States and Selected Foreign Countries, together with Executive Reorganization Studies and Personnel Recommendations, compiled by The Library of Congress Congressional Research Service, for the Subcommittee on Manpower and Civil Service of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, House of Representatives 94^th Congress, 2^nd session, December 31, 1967, U.S Government Printing Office, Washington, 1976, p.4.

494. Confucius Ideas and Thomas Jefferson's Preamble to the Declaration of Independence

Russell Freedman, one of America's premier biographers for young people , wrote the book in 2002, titled Confucius: The Golden Rule Hardcover . In this book Freedman presents his readers the remarkable life and far-reaching influence of Confucius, the famous Chinese philosopher.

Confucius had influenced the United States, as we learned from Dr. Dave Wang's research. The  influence has been far greater than many people realize in world today. The Jesuit missionaries introduced Confucius and his works to Europe in the 16^th century. Some of the them became scholars in the field of China studies and some of them were hired by the Chinese imperial courts. It was in this period of time when the Lun Yu, known in Europe as the Analects of Confucius was translated into Latin.

According to Freedman, European philosophers, statesmen, and writers were surprised by finding that more than 2,000 years earlier, in the “mysterious Orient,” (p.38)  Confucius had lectured the "same thoughts " the European thinkers were thinking. The Europeans "were impressed by Confucius’s teachings about the honest use of language, by his attacks on hereditary privilege, and by his ideas concerning good government." (p.40). The Europeans were shocked by the doctrine that "a ruler must have the consent of his people, and if he fails in hisduties, then the people have the moral right of revolution." Confucius' ideas influenced the development of democratic ideals both in Europe and America." People in the world today are able to find Confucius' influence on the founding of the United States by reading Thomas Jefferson’s preamble to the Declaration of Independence:

“Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….. Wherever any form of government becomes destructive of theseends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institutea new government.”  (p. 40.)

478. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Confucius

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and Thomas Paine (1737-1809) were the two founders that pointed out the importance of morals during the inception of the United States. In 1778, two years after American colonists declared their independence, Franklin emphasized the significance of morality. He pointed out the necessity of governing with morality, especially for the leaders of the United States. He told fellow Americans that laws were not enough for the new nation. He used his experiences to advice Americans on the importance of virtues. Franklin raised the question, “What can laws do without morals?” He clearly expressed that he believed, without morals, the human society “will in a course of minutes become corrupt like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched.”[1]   

Thomas Paine believed that Confucian morals were necessary for politicians in their political debate. He raised Confucius’ virtual principles during his political polemic with the federalists. To support his argument against the federalists, Thomas Paine quoted Confucian moral principles to criticize their moral faults. He told these federalists to follow Confucian teachings so they could be worthy to argue with: “I recommend to them the observance of a commandment” regulated by Confucius, “that existed before either Christian or Jew existed.”  He then listed Confucius principles “Thou shalt make a covenant with thy senses, With thine eye, that it beholds no evil. With thine ear, that it hear no evil. With thy tongue, that it speak no evil. With thy hands that they cemmit no evils.”[2]

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[1] Benjamin Franklin, To Madame Brillon: “The Ephemera” AL (draft): Cornell University Library; French translations: American Philosophical Society (three), Bibliothèque de la Société Eduenne, Autun, Institut de France; copy or transcript: Yale University Library; incomplete copy: Huntington Library.

[2] Thomas Paine in 1802? ,  The Political Works of Thomas Paine, 2 vols.,  [in 9 pt.], Oxford University, 1864, p.15. Paine quoted from Confucius’ following teaching maxims to Yan Yuan, one of his well-known students: "Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety." (Section 12 of  the Analects).

473. A Gentleman Should Use His Talents to Serve the Community

Alexis de Tocqueville was famously struck by the American way of joining together to help the community. This communal tradition of the United States was promoted by the founders in the founding era. Confucian moral philosophy helped the founders nurture a tradition of community service.  

Confucius taught rulers to be virtuous and formulated a series of ethical principles for leaders of the state. Therefore, a very important part of Confucianism is personal and virtuous cultivation. Confucius requested leaders to be gentlemen who should always claim moral leadership to exercise proper influences in order to put society in good order. Following Confucius moral principles, in traditional Chinese society gentlemen with good virtue always served the community with their talents and resources. They devoted their attention to local welfare institutions, such as educational promotion. According to Confucius, Gentlemen “always claimed moral leadership to exercise proper influences was necessary to put the country in good order.” They “devoted attention to local welfare institutions,” such as educational promotion. They “printed their rhymed quotations for effective communications to the less educated as rhymes were easy for them to learn.”

From Benjamin Franklin we find all of the characteristics of a gentleman, as required by Confucius. Franklin accumulated wealth in his middle age. Then, he gradually retired from business. He “remade himself” as “a public-spirited gentleman.”  He donated his time and energy to public affairs and welfare. During the period from the 1730s to the 1740s, Franklin helped to found some cultural and philanthropic institutions, including the Library Company, the American PhilosophicalSociety, the Public Academy of Philadelphia (the University of Pennsylvania)and a network of volunteer fire companies. In his popular weekly newspaper, Pennsylvania Gazette, Franklin often published some rhymed quotations for his readers. Most impressively, in 1737, he published Confucius moral works in the same newspaper.  

Benjamin Franklin’s contribution to America’s communal tradition has become a valuable legacy. His hard work had helped produce the phenomenon discovered by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1803 Americans were very good at “subordinating their individualism to voluntary groups of one type or another." The later history tells that Franklin’s service to the community has become a particular United States tradition.

472. Samuel Huntington and Confucian Culture

For Samuel Huntington, China's resistance to Western supremacy stems from its Confucian values, which emphasize the importance of hierarchy, authority, consensus and the state's dominion over society and which clash with American beliefs of liberty, equality, democracy and individualism.

We cannot agree with Mr. Huntington's argument that Confucianism is what has created friction between China and the United States; trade and economic patterns have. 

Clearly enough, Samuel Huntington didn’t have any clue about the United States founders’ borrowing from Confucian moral philosophy when they unfold the history of the United States and worked hard to lay down cultural foundation for this new nation. Dr. Dave Wang's paper, Confucius in American Founding, reveals how the founders used Confucian moral philosophy to bring up new virtue for the new nation. 

465. Confucian Ideas Lifted Americans From Corruption

In today's New York Times, July 12, 2016, David Brooks published his OP-ED article, Is the U.S. On the Path to Ruin. He provided a very clear historical picture on the political crisis generated by moral corruption in the federal governments in the 1880s and the 1890s. According to him, in the periods, “America faced crises as deep as the ones we face today …The political system was worse and more corrupt than ours is today. Culturally things were bad, too. Racism and anti-immigrant feelings were at plaguelike levels.” 

In order to change it, “America responded.”David listed some specific measures to show how Americans stood up to meet the challenges. However, he missed the most important American response to fight against the contagious corruption. At this critical conjuncture, the American leaders adopted Chinese civil service examination system based on Confucian ideas. Under the help of Chinese civil service Examination system the Americans lifted Americans out of notorious corruption that tortured the whole nation. Both the inheritance systems in the colonies overthrew by the American Revolution and the Spoil System started by Thomas Jefferson Administration were replaced with the merit system. As a result, corruptions was greatly reduced.

 

According to Confucius, governing authority should be based on merit, and not inherited status. The public service positions should be given to those who passed the imperial examinations. The Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), which established Confucianism as its official philosophy installed the meritocracy as its governmental system to select officials in the second century BC. The Han Dynasty began choosing public service official based on civil service exams for the first time in the world.

464 Confucianism and the Origin of American Democratic System

It is widely recognized that throughout Chinese history, Confucianism was employed in the service of authoritarian system. Democracy was not a part of the Confucian tradition. However, some scholars made their efforts to argue that Confucian tradition was consistent with democracy. They have proved their opinion by arguing that humaneness  (仁）or benevolence, the core of Confucian thought, was used as a Confucian standard to judge authoritarian politics. If a ruler failed in his responsibilities to be a good ruler, he should be removed, and a good ruler installed.

However, this is not Dr. Dave Wang's argument on relationship between American Democracy and Confucianism. Confucianism indeed made contribution to the origin of American democratic system. In the founders eyes, Confucian moral philosophy was valuable for their efforts to enhance the virtue of the leaders. For the founders, to keep leaders with good virtue was the key to success of a democratic system. Therefore, Confucianism was involved the founding the the democratic institution in the founding era of the United States.

"If we want to grow in virtue, and experience a healthier, more productive political environment, each of us must demand more virtue." (Arthur C. Brooks, The Trick to Being More Virtuous, The New York Times, November 28, 2014.) This was exactly the situation that the founders were facing when they called upon Confucius moral principles to be employed to advance American virtues.
The picture shows Professor Krill Thompson's article, Traditional Chinese Concepts and 17th-18th Century Enlightenment Ideals: Reflections on the IHS Conference on Freedom, Equality, Democracy, and the Rise of Market Economy, October 2015

463. Confucian Virtue and the Founding of the United States

Today, we celebrate American Independence Day.  We think of July 4, 1776, as a day that represents the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States of America as an independent nation. 

In celebrating the National Day, I feel that the Americans should thank Confucianism. Why so? Confucian moral philosophy had influenced the founders when unfolding the blueprint of this nation. 

        As the main designers of the new nation, the founders knew that it took more than a perfect plan of government to preserve liberty. They needed some moral principles accepted by the people to encourage them to obey laws voluntarily. They recognized that a free government should be supported by people who could act morally without compulsion, and would not willfully violate the rights of others. Benjamin Franklin firmly believed that "Laws without morals are in vain."Cultivating new virtues for the fledgling United States therefore became one of the most significant themes during this time of social and political transformation. With this notion in mind, the founders turned to Confucian moral philosophy. 

460. Confucius, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Leading by Morals

Confucius maintained that the masses should be led by leaders who governed through their virtue rather than through their laws. He believed that if a government rested its rule entirely on laws, its people would try to escape punishment and have no sense of shame.  Therefore, he reasoned that if the people were led by virtue, they would possess a sense of shame and follow their leaders through their own will.

Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine were the two founders that pointed out the importance of morals during the inception of the United States. In 1778, two years after American colonists declared their independence, Franklin emphasized the significance of morality. He pointed out the necessity of governing with morality, especially for the leaders of the United States. He told fellow Americans that laws were not enough for the new nation. He used his experiences to advice Americans on the importance of virtues. Franklin raised the question, “What can laws do without morals?” He clearly expressed that he believed, without morals, the human society “will in a course of minutes become corrupt like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched.”

Thomas Paine believed that Confucian morals were necessary for politicians in their political debate. He raised Confucius’ virtual principles during his political polemic with the federalists. To support his argument against the federalists, Thomas Paine quoted Confucian moral principles to criticize their moral faults. He told these federalists to follow Confucian teachings so they could be worthy to argue with: “I recommend to them the observance of a commandment” regulated by Confucius, “that existed before either Christian or Jew existed.”  He then listed Confucius principles “Thou shalt make a covenant with thy senses, With thine eye, that it beholds no evil. With thine ear, that it hear no evil. With thy tongue, that it speak no evil. With thy hands that they cemmit no evils.”

452. Chinese Cultures and Traditions That Have Been Adapted in The US

It is widely acknowledged that it is practically impossible to pinpoint every single instance of Chinese culture and tradition in the United States. For Joseph Rodriguez, one of the reasons is that “many individuals are practicing their traditions both in public and in their homes with their own family members and friends, and personally, I love it.”

However,  for Dr. Dave Wang, the most important reason is that the founders of this nation assimilated elements of Chinese culture in the culture of the United States. I would like to quote Dr. KirillO. Thompson below,

　"For his part, Jefferson saw the importance of Confucius' virtues for keeping his ideals alive, augmenting happiness, and improving the country over time. In his inaugural speech in 1801, Jefferson declared:

Let us, [……] pursue our republican principles; our [……] representative government. [……] enlightened by a benign religion, [……] inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man, adoring a providence, which by its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here, and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? (Italics added)."

Dr. Thompson has further made it clear that all the virtues Jefferson "enumerated in his inauguration speech were precisely the moral principles that Confucius had instructed."

444. Confucius, Thomas Paine and the Three Wise Monkeys

Several weeks ago, Mr. Jeffrey Bingham Mead, the President of History Education Council of Hawaii State, mentioned to me that he found a statue of three wise monkeys at a store in Manhattan. I was interested in it. I know that Dr. Dave Wang has mentioned the three moral principles of Confucius symbolized by the statue in his paper, Confucius in American Founding. According to Dr. Wang, Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, quoted the three moral principles in his argument with the federalists. Today, Jeffrey sent me the photo he took yesterday when he had a business lunch with some friends. Thank you Jeffrey, for the great picture. Please enjoy the photo.

In the meantime, I feel I should also show you the translation of the Confucius moral principles below:

 非禮 勿 視, 非禮 勿 聽, 非禮 勿 言, 非禮 勿 動.」

論　語

Confucian Analects

James Legge ,1893

顏淵第十二

Book XII: Yen Yûan

Chapter 1

顏淵問仁。
　　子曰：“克己復禮爲仁。一日克己復禮，天下歸仁焉。爲仁由己，而由人乎哉？”
　　顏淵曰：“請問其目？”
　　子曰：“非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言，非禮勿動。”
　　顏淵曰：“回雖不敏，請事斯語矣！”

How to attain to perfect virtue:-- a conversation with Yen Yüan.
1. Yen Yüan asked about perfect virtue. The Master said, "To subdue one's self and return to propriety, is perfect virtue. If a man can for one day subdue himself and return to propriety, all under heaven will ascribe perfect virtue to him. Is the practice of perfect virtue from a man himself, or is it from others?"
2. Yen Yüan said, "I beg to ask the steps of that process." The Master replied, "Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety." Yen Yüan then said, "Though I am deficient in intelligence and vigor, I will make it my business to practice this lesson."