Matthew Spalding speaks on what early Americans went through to obtain their liberty from England Tuesday night for the Lectures on Liberty series at the Granada Theater. Spalding is the director of the Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies. Jonathan Elliott/The Bulletin

The Granada Theater, 807 Commercial St., played host to the first of three “Lectures on Liberty” Tuesday. Matthew Spalding, of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, delivered the lecture “Liberty and the Constitution.” Spalding began his talk with a moving account of the American Revolution.

Based on writings from America’s founding fathers and interviews from the time period, Spalding argues that the “great theme of the American Revolution was self-governance.” What provoked the colonists to rise up against the British was not the Stamp Act or the Crown’s taxes on tea. Rather, it was the question of who would govern the colonies. Spalding argues that it is that question – the question of self-governance – that persists in America still today.

            In Spalding’s view, progressives and conservatives come from two separate ideological camps, representing two distinct philosophical traditions. Conservatives are following in the tradition of the British Revolution and adhere to a strict constructivist interpretation of the Constitution.

Progressives, on the other hand believe in a more fluid interpretation of the Constitution – a living Constitution.  Progressives are following the logical conclusion of the French Revolution. It began with idealism, relativism and radicalism. It ended with despotism.

“The Progressive argument has never been settled by the American people,” Spalding said.

The issues facing the current presidential administration are not really new issues at all he said. The real issue, is about what role government should play in society.

“It is no coincidence that most of our problems are attempts to solve earlier policy decisions,” Spalding said.

Health care reform was part of a platform introduced in 1912, after the German model of health insurance from 1904. Spalding argues that the real crux of the matter is not health care, but the role of government in spheres of life that are not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution.

For Spalding, a federal mandate requiring everyone to purchase health insurance is anathema because it would mean that the federal government would regulate the people’s right to do nothing. And if the government can do that, Spalding said, government becomes limitless.

The alternative to self-governance according to Spalding, is a state where government plays a greater role in people’s lives and steps in to do things for citizens that previously were considered the realm of the individual. In his view, this would look something like modern day Europe.

Spalding is an unabashed proponent of “American exceptionalism” – the concept that America is a unique experiment, special and set apart because it was the first nation to be founded based on the idea of self-governance.

He also maintained that the founding fathers were united by their religiosity and mutually inspired by the Bible. 

Historian and Emporia State University Professor Karen Smith disagreed with that claim, arguing instead that several of the founding fathers were deists and while they may have been raised with Christian faith traditions, they did not adhere to them personally. Benjamin Franklin fits this bill, said Smith.

Not everyone in the audience shared Spalding’s sentiment that big government was the source of America’s ills.  In a phone interview, Smith went on to say that she did “not agree that government is too big,” and that “this country is too big and too complex to be left to the forces of the market.”

Wichita State University Constitutional Law Professor Sarah McIntosh agreed with many of Spalding’s points and thought the lecture was delivered well, but “the only thing is that there were no solutions, there was no game plan for how to get back to the founding principles. I asked him if he thought a return to America’s founding principles should occur at the local, state, or federal level, and he sort of copped out, saying ‘all of the above.’”

Spalding made the case that the real issue facing America is the issue self-governance and what role government should play in society.  He said that while there is a difference between freedom and liberty, government is ultimately the issuer of liberty.

“Every generation in America has to decide to vindicate the cause of liberty,” Spalding said. “All we have to do is act worthy.”

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