The American conservative movement has been struggling with an identity crisis since the 2016 election. Discussions of when and where the state—the longtime bête noire of the American right—can intervene in private life has turned into an outright civil war between two broad factions, the libertarians and the nationalists. There are varying flavors of these two camps: conservatarians, right-leaning neoliberals, national conservatives, post-fusionists, and more. But these groups usually align in the two broader camps.
Both groups often portray the American Founding as an innately liberal movement. Scholarship (both specialist and general) and political commentary (both for and against) routinely repeat this meme. While liberalism clearly had a deeper impact in early America than it did in Europe, it is a mistake to see American conservatism as mostly ossified liberalism, making the national conservatives Euro–Canadian interlopers, if not outright usurpers.
While there’s a lot of literature that disrupts this narrative, I recently ordered a reprint of Richard Current’s 1955 book on Daniel Webster to better understand the native American roots of the burgeoning national conservative movement. It was an insightful and concise look into the life of Daniel Webster, his relatively forgotten legacy in American politics and how his unique conservatism has application to today.
Northern, National Conservatism
Although Northern politicians are often portrayed as innovative and progressive descendants of fanatical Puritans, in reality Northern conservatism survived well into the 19th century. While different from their Southern cousins, they shared a surprising large amount of family traits. Webster’s stances on economics and political power (to him the two were inseparable) were dictated first and foremost by his concern for stability and prosperity.
For instance, during his free-trade period, Webster argued that industry “tended to make the poor more numerous and more poor, and the rich less in number but more rich.” By contrast he praised the American yeoman:
He has a stake in society, and is inclined, therefore rather to uphold than demolish it…[Industrial workers] have no stake in society; they hang loose upon it, and are often neither happy in their condition nor without danger to the state.
Though Webster would change his position on industry and the tariff (as did the South), his concern for preserving order was always his north star in politics. He backed free trade when he felt free trade supported prosperity for the average American, and he backed the tariff when he felt the opposite. Webster had no love for some invisible hand that must be obeyed. For Webster, American economic policy should follow American interest, as “the truest American policy which shall best employ American capital and American labor, and best sustain the whole population.”