Our Enlightened Caste

Dean Roscoe Pound (Harvard Law Dean from 1916 to 1936): "(law should be) ....in the hands of a progressive and enlightened caste whose conceptions are in advance of the public."


It is hard to imagine what time in history a Harvard Law Dean could say this without some controversy, without some comment. It certainly doesn't sound like an American opinion on government or leadership. (John Adams' lapses excepted.) Especially the "caste" reference. One of the things that so shocked de Tocqueville was that no citizen in America called another "master." There was no such distinction among Americans. The Americans might revere someone or some group but they felt no one above them, recognized no superior "caste". The problem is that the "special caste" is usually self appointed, as others may recognize themselves as Napoleon, Jesus or the Queen of the Sun and Moon. And in a world of uneven distribution of wealth and talent, there is always the chance that those who have less will see it as deserved, just as a six foot three inch blond Plantagenet probably should be a war leader--then king.

But if a culture allows people to feel inferior, they will. Then they will start deferring their decisions, and eventually their lives, to those seemingly more competent. The genius of the American creation is its insistence that everyone is equal before the law, that there are no special citizens. Every man is given responsibility for his own life. It is the American starting point.

The average men who fought and died at Valley Forge did not think like Madison or Jefferson. The brilliance of the American creators is that Madison and Jefferson were capable of thinking like them, the average man, and with admiration not condescension. The Founders of the country felt these farmers, tradesmen, merchants and trappers were capable of any achievement. And why not? They had seen it. They had seen a small peripheral society take arms over points of law and defeat the most powerful nation on earth on the battlefield.

Perhaps that astonishing military victory still hangs on the memory of our "enlightened caste". An element of fear, even paranoia, has crept into modern commentary of late. The recurring theme is "inequality", inequality of income, wealth and position. As if the citizen's accomplishment was not the fulfilling of one's potential as a free man but rather in the collections of goods. The wealth of the nation is unsurpassed in the history of the world but inequality threatens the stability of the nation!

This is new. In the minds of the Founders, the threat to the country was never the grasping average man, it was always the grasping leader.