Highlighting Neglected Conservative Heroes | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Mitch Kokai, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    RALEIGH     Ask a modern-day American conservative to list his political heroes, and you're likely to hear names such as Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Those who've studied 20th-century government might throw Calvin Coolidge and Barry Goldwater into the mix.

    But you're much less likely to hear the names Nathaniel Macon or Josiah Bailey, especially if the person compiling the list holds no ties to North Carolina.

    That's why the latest book from Raleigh-based finance executive Garland Tucker offers such a valuable contribution to today's American political discourse. Titled Conservative Heroes, Tucker's fast-paced narrative highlights each of the men listed above - and a half-dozen more - who helped shape American government from its earliest days. (Tucker discusses his book June 29 during a lunchtime presentation for the John Locke Foundation's Shaftesbury Society. C-SPAN2's "Book TV" will record that speech.)

    Before launching into discussions of his 14 protagonists, Tucker spells out "foundational principles" of conservatism that motivated them. Conservatism is "grounded in a realistic view of human nature," rather than a belief that good government can lead to a better class of human beings. Government exists primarily "to establish order and preserve liberty," and the conservative "stops abruptly" at those two primary roles.

    Property rights prove to be as important to conservatives as human rights since they "are inseparably bound together." Plus both the community and country at large depend on "private virtues."

    Tucker makes no claim that his book offers definitive portraits of the leaders it presents. Nor does he attempt to rank his heroes or suggest that he has chosen the top 14 conservatives from the pages of American history.

    But Conservative Heroes tells the important story of the role liberty-minded thinkers and politicians have played at critical points in the nation's history: challenging the first consolidation of federal government power at the end of the 18th century, countering pleas for easy-money policies in the late 19th century, standing up to government overreach during the New Deal era, and offering a principled alternative to the post-World War II welfare state "consensus."

    Along the way, Tucker wipes the dust off of several interesting biographies. Fans of his first book, The High Tide of American Conservatism, will not be surprised to see a full chapter devoted to John W. Davis. While that earlier volume focused on Davis' role as Democratic presidential nominee in the 1924 election that returned Calvin Coolidge to the White House, this book highlights Davis' impressive record arguing conservative cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Fans of North Carolina history will note with interest the inclusion of Macon, the Jefferson-era speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Bailey, a Democratic U.S. senator who served in Congress more than a century later. Both called the Old North State home. Both displayed no fear when standing up to presidents from their own party when those presidents strayed from limited-government principles.

    Macon's distaste for public debt surfaced early in his political career. "Macon rose to offer a resolution to reduce funding for the army," Tucker writes. "Defenders of a larger appropriation, he said, 'think borrowing five or six millions a trifling thing.' But such borrowing was 'unjust,' he declared, in an admonition that conservatives have echoed down through the decades: 'If we contract a debt we ought to pay it, and not leave it to your children. To be sure it is much easier to vote money than to lay taxes, because people do not directly feel the vote, but if taxed they must instantly know it.'"

    Later, Macon and Virginia colleague John Randolph served as vocal critics of Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, along with other policies that strayed from the third president's earlier "radical reversion to limited government."

    "They embraced the principles of 1800, which they understood to be simplicity and economy in government, individual freedom from economic and political oppression, and forbearance and peace in foreign affairs," Tucker explains.

    Like his North Carolina predecessor, Bailey supported his party's president - in this case, Franklin D. Roosevelt - until FDR's New Deal proved especially hazardous to the traditional American conception of a limited federal government. "As early as 1931, he foresaw the damage that government activism could do to the economy and the nation: 'The danger in such a situation is that ill-informed and inconsiderate men will get into the leadership and bring to pass measures that will not only not accomplish the purpose desired, but will actually do lasting injury to all of us.'"

    Six years later, Bailey played a key role in drafting a 10-point document opposing the New Deal. It came to be known as "The Conservative Manifesto." "Though often viewed as a historical footnote, this manifesto was an important milestone in the history of American conservatism - clearly articulating the importance of free enterprise, limited government, and separation of powers."

    Tucker makes the case that the manifesto, while ineffective in its day, spurred a coalition of southern Democrats and Republicans that blocked the greatest excesses of government interventionists for decades.

    Two footnotes: First, those who peruse the book's cover are bound to notice 14 photos of dead white men. While that's likely to generate angst among some readers, those who follow Tucker's narrative will understand why his profiles skewed toward people who tend to look alike. A list of the "most influential" or "most important" conservatives in American history would look a bit different than Tucker's list.

    Second, some readers are bound to object to the inclusion of John Calhoun, the Jackson-era vice president. Tucker does not try to hide the fact that Calhoun's strident advocacy for states' rights has come to be identified with "the defense of slavery and the ultimate dissolution of the Union" during the Civil War. But the author makes no apologies for profiling a key figure in American conservative thought, defending the soundness of Calhoun's principles while recognizing that his arguments often defended an "ignoble cause."

    Amity Shlaes, whose own recent scholarship has helped correct the historical record of the New Deal era, offers a fitting description in her foreword about the ultimate impact of Conservative Heroes: "Taken together, Tucker's profiles remind us that America is broader than we think, and that the country's history is too subtle to force into the framework of modern progressivism."

    If readers are prompted to learn more about Macon, Bailey, Davis, and even Calhoun, then one suspects Tucker will be satisfied that he has achieved his goal.