418. Why The Founders Found Confucian Moral Philosophy Irresistible

In his book, The Idea of America; Reflections on the Birth of the United States, Professor Gorgon S. Wood provided his readers his unique insight on the success of the American Revolution. Through reading of his book, one also will understand more clearly on the founders' introduction of Confucian moral philosophy to the Americans. It shouldn't be regarded as a choice of convenience for the founders' efforts to promote the philosophy in the critical time of the nation.

Professor Wood pointed out correctly, the American revolutionaries' view of the ancient past was very selective. They focused "on the moral and social basis of politics and on social degeneracy and corruption." (p.59) Not only the founders, but the planters also "were voicing a growing sense of impending ruin, whose sources seemed in the minds of many to be linked more and more with the corrupting British connection and Scottish factors but for others frighteningly rooted in 'our Pride, our Luxury and Idleness.'" In addition to the planters, the public in Virginia and other colonies "became obsessed with 'corruption' virtue, and luxury." Therefore, in the eve of the Revolution, the remarkable growth of dissent "suggests some sort of social stress." (p.50)

Naturally, the founders were looking for a kind of moral philosophy to help them build new virtue for the new nation. It was in this vital conjuncture of the US history, Confucian moral philosophy was entrusted the responsibility by the founders to start a new virtue for the liberated Americans.

Dr. Wood's research allows us to understand further on the founding father's efforts to bring Confucian moral philosophy over the Atlantic Ocean to the new nation they created. They saw the need of such a moral philosophy.

417. The Significance of Confucius Portrait at James Madison's Home

James Madison (1751-1836), the father of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, had a portrait of Confucius hanging in his Virginia home. 

In his 2013 book, The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735-1817, Dr. Myron Magnet made his efforts to examine the reasons why the American revolution the only successful revolution. Readers may get the answer from reading his book. For me, one of the reasons was that the founders drew positive elements and received inspiration from other cultures, particularly Chinese culture. 

The below vivid description of Madison's personal experiences in his Virginia home reveals the significance of Confucius portrait at his house. The fourth president "had lived nineteen years in Montpelier, the columned brick Virginia plantation where he had grown up since age nine or ten, where as a young legislator he had pored over history and political philosophy to help fame his plan for the U.S. Constitution". (From The Founders at Home, p.321)

416. On Time for the United States to Learn from China

In her blog, Asia Unbound,  Elizabeth Economy pointed out that the United States should learn from China. She said that, "The United States has spent over thirty years trying to “teach” China with, at best, mixed results. I think the time is well overdue for a turnabout in roles. We need to start learning from China." Interestingly enough, she called for the United States to learn from China in 2011.

From this blog and Dr. Dave Wang's published works, readers may have learned, the history that the United States learned from China is longer than the history of the United States. Famous colonists, including the founders of this nation, started to learn from China and adopted positive elements from Chinese civilization in the colonial period.

Clearly, the process of learning from China was started by the founding fathers who borrowed much wisdoms from China, including Confucianism in the founding era.

415. American Confucian or American Socrates

For John E. Remsburg, Benjamin franklin was an American Socrates. The following statement from Franklin can be used to support John's opinion,  “The perusal of Shaftesbury and Collins had made me a skeptic; and, being previously so as to many doctrines of Christianity, I found Socrates' method to be both the safest for myself, as well as the most embarrassing to those against whom I applied it. It soon afforded me singular pleasure; I incessantly practiced it; and became very adroit in obtaining, even from persons of superior understanding, concessions of which they did not foresee the consequence" Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, p. 17)  Clearly, Franklin adopted Socrates method for reasoning and communication.

In moral cultivation, it is more appropriate to say that Franklin was an American Confucian. Through Dr. Dave Wang’s research, we have learned that Franklin loved Confucius moral philosophy since his young age. He organized the youth group to discuss how to improve one’s virtue. He published chapters of Confucius work in 1737. He claimed the Confucius was his example in advancing his and the human beings  virtue in 1749. We have enough reasons to say that Franklin was an American Confucian by 1749.

414. Confucian Moral Philosophy and America's Best Hope

The founders would be very happy to read what a contemporary writer’s following statement,   “America's best hope is to adopt a more Confucian lifestyle: (1) more focused on education, (2) more respectful of old people, (3) better able to subordinate private needs to public goods, (4) more responsible to the needs of family, (5) more polite in our daily lives, and (6) more hardworking.” (What Can Americans Learn from Confucianism? A Whiteheadian Appreciation of the Confucian Lifestyle.)

The United States has developed from a small nation composed of the 13 colonies into the world power since 1776. Indeed, over the 240 years, situation changed a lot. Many things disappeared or lost in the history. However, the efforts improving American virtues through Confucian moral philosophy has remained the same as the founders’ in the founding era. The virtues Jay McDaniel listed are mainly what the founders hoped and requested the new Americans to possess.

Jay has also noticed that, “The likelihood that Americans will be learning from Confucianism increases every day. … As Hillary Clinton observes in a recent article in Foreign Affairs: "It is becoming increasingly clear that the world's strategic and economic center of gravity will be the Asia-Pacific, from the Indian subcontinent to western shores of the Americas.”

413. Confucius and the Origin of Communal Tradition in the United States

The communal tradition of the United States was started by the founders in the founding era of the United States. It was nurtured by Confucian moral philosophy the founders promoted in the new nation. 

Most people would not think ancient Chinese thought was relevant for the American founding, but Confucian moral philosophy had answers for the moral reconstruction in the wake of the independence. In his famous work The Analects, Confucius taught a life long process of moral advancement. One of my friends was puzzled by Dr. Dave Wang's paper, Confucius in American Founding. For him, Confucianism favored a hierarchical political system culminated in the emperor. How Confucianism made contribution to the cause of the founders, who fought against the monarchical society. It was also unthinkable that Confucius would support the founders radical ideals, --commitment to liberty, equality, government of the people and rule of law. 

Here we need to understand Confucianism fully. No doubt, in Confucius era, the monarchical society with an enlightened ruler was an ideal social system. Confucius taught rulers to be virtuous and formulated a series of ethic principles for leaders of state. Therefore, a very important part of Confucianism is personal virtual 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, gentlemen with good virtue always serve the community with their talents and resources. They should devote attention to local welfare institutions, such as promoting education.

Clearly, the founders who realized the value of Confucian personal virtual cultivation, adopted his individual moral improvement in their efforts to reconstruct a new virtue for the new nation. That explains why the founders promoted the Confucian moral philosophy in the founding era. As for how they used Confucian moral philosophy, please read Confucius in the American Founding.

One of the legacies from the founding fathers efforts is that their efforts had produced the phenomenon as discovered by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1803 "that Americans were very good at associating with one another and subordinating their individualism to voluntary groups of one type or another."(Francis Fukuyama, Confucianism and Democracy).

412. Why Confucius, not Socrates in American Moral Revolution

Dr. Dave Wang's article, Confucius in American Founding, examines the efforts of the founders who used Confucian moral philosophy to help created a new virtue for the fledgling new nation. One question is that why Socrates virtue was not adopted by the founding fathers. In the following readers will find why Confucius moral principles, not Socrates were chosen in the moral reconstruction during the founding era. For the founders, Socrates's real moral principles were corrupted by Plato, Thomas Jefferson pointed out that "So again, the superlative wisdom of Socrates is testified by all antiquity, and placed on ground not to be questioned. When, therefore, Plato puts into his mouth such paralogisms, such quibbles on words, and sophisms, as a school boy would be ashamed of, we conclude they were the whimsies of Plato's own foggy brain, and acquit Socrates of puerilities so unlike his character." ( Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to William Short from Monticello August 4,1820.)

In one of his federal papers, James Madison, told his fellow Americans, "Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob." (The Total Number of the House of Representatives, Independent Journal, Wednesday, February 13, 1788)

Finally, in the eyes of  John Adams, Confucius comes in the first place in terms of virtue. Adams declares, “Confucius, Zoroaster, Socrates, Mahomet, not to mention authorities really sacred, have agreed in this” goal of happiness through virtue. ( John Adams - “Thoughts on Government”April 1776) 

Confucian moral philosophy made available in the eighteenth century to wider and deeper strata of the colonists. For example, Benjamin Franklin worked hard to spread Confucius moral teachings in North America as early as 1737. Confucius moral teachings had been studied and discussed in the colonies about half century before the founding of the United States.