The View From 1776

The Scottish Enlightenment and America’s Founding: The Drama of the Constitutional Convention
By Robert Curry

“Discussion began on June 1 with the Virginia Plan, introduced by Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph and privately drafted by Madison …It would have resembled the parliamentary system of government that exists in much of the world today…[James] Wilson argued early on for a single President to be directly elected by the people…A small group of delegates, known as “the committee of detail”…produced a draft Constitution in early August.  Wilson, the consistent supporter of an independent executive, headed the committee, and it showed.  The Constitution now vested “the executive power of the United States” in one man.”
John Yoo, Crisis and Command

No doubt it is impossible to quantify the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment on America’s founding.  This is the kind of question that can be endlessly debated by scholars. It simply is the case that many factors contributed and many streams of causation converged to make America’s founding possible.

However, it would be possible to dramatize the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment.  That is of course true because the dramatist’s task is in one sense much simpler than the task of the historian.  The dramatist is free to create characters and structure the action to convey his message; the historian must deal with stubborn facts, with what actually happened. 

Remarkably, the actual course of events during the Constitutional Convention, as if by dramatic intent, seems designed to draw our attention to the enormous importance of the Scottish Enlightenment in America’s Founding.

Conceived as a dramatic work, Madison and Wilson were given the roles that drive the action.  Madison opened with the Virginia Plan; Wilson played a central role in the debate and in the final decisive action, the drafting of the Constitution by the committee that gave it the shape we know today.  Remarkably, their central roles also dramatize the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment on the American Founding.  That is so because Madison and Wilson taken together perfectly symbolize that impact. 

Madison perfectly symbolizes one half of the story of the Scots in America.  He represents the Revolutionary generation of Americans trained by the wave of Scots who brought the Scottish Enlightenment to America.  As Gary Wills observed, “At age sixteen Jefferson and Madison and Hamilton were all being schooled by Scots who had come to America as adults.” Madison’s tutor, Donald Robertson, was a product of the Scottish Enlightenment at its peak, but the great intellectual influence on Madison was John Witherspoon, also a Scot.  When Madison entered Princeton in 1769, under the leadership of Witherspoon it had become the American university where the great thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment—Hume, Smith, Hutcheson, Reid, Ferguson and Kames—were studied most intensely. 

As for Wilson, he is a perfect symbol for the other half of the story because he was actually a part of that wave of Scots in America. A member in good standing of the Scottish Enlightenment, educated at St. Andrews, Glasgow and Edinburgh at the height of the Scottish Enlightenment, he was also a signer of the Declaration—one of only 6 men who signed both documents. On stage, in our Constitutional-Convention-as-drama, we would be constantly reminded of the Scottish influence by Wilson’s strong Scottish accent.

Giving Madison and Wilson the roles that drive the action highlights the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment.  Seen as drama, the action becomes a debate between the two characters who symbolize the story of the Scottish Enlightenment in America.

In addition, the design of the drama includes another device that brilliantly highlights the significance of Madison and Wilson.  Each is elevated by being closely associated with one of the two most esteemed men in the room—George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.  Everyone in the room knew that Madison spoke for Washington; he was even seated to Washington’s right and beside the dais from which Washington presided.  Only Washington and Madison faced the other delegates.  Wilson was paired with Franklin, and Wilson read Franklin’s prepared statements for him.

For these pairings to succeed dramatically, we only need to keep in mind just how much Washington and Franklin were the very symbols of America.  Washington, “the Father of the Country,” and Franklin, “the First American,” were for Americans of that time America’s two iconic figures. 

The dramatic impact of Madison and Wilson’s pairing with Washington and Franklin is greatly enhanced by the comparative silence of the two icons.  Washington rarely spoke, confining himself to the role of president of the Convention. Except for the prepared statements that Wilson read for him, Franklin also limited his remarks to a few critical moments when his enormous prestige was needed to make a way forward.  Their brilliant junior associates conducted the campaign. Madison and Wilson, our symbols of the Scottish Enlightenment’s impact on America, are given center stage.

Considered purely as drama, pairing Wilson the Scot and Madison the Scottish-educated American with the two great icons of America, and giving Wilson and Madison their key roles in the debate seems designed to send us today a powerful message about the importance of the Scottish Enlightenment to America’s founding.