(Post 5 – Order in the Mess Series)
Most human history is forced assortment—conquest, empires, coercion. But one experiment chose the other way. Imperfect, messy, but closer to nature’s pattern than most.
- The young United States under the Articles of Confederation was falling apart—states taxing each other like foreign countries, no real army, debt crushing farmers (Shays’ Rebellion showed how bad it was), Britain and Spain circling. Chaos. Delegates from 12 states gathered in Philadelphia—not to force a new order, but to fix what they had.
They started with the individual. The Declaration already said it: rights to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness are unalienable—endowed by nature, not granted by kings or majorities. Government exists to secure those rights, deriving power from the consent of the governed. Autonomy first.
Then voluntary assortment. “We the People” wasn’t a top-down decree; it was a compact. States and citizens chose to unite for common benefits—defense, trade, stability—but kept limits. Federalism split power (national vs. state), separation of powers checked ambition, Bill of Rights protected individuals from overreach. Inclusion was selective: shared values (liberty, rule of law, self-reliance), contribution (work, taxes, defense), assimilation into the culture. Newcomers welcome if they added to the whole, not drained it.
No forced blending. No arbitrary collectives. When compromises happened—like the 3/5 Clause—they were pragmatic necessities to keep the union together. Southern states demanded full counting of enslaved people for representation (to boost their power); Northern delegates wanted zero. The middle ground gave less than the South wanted, limiting slave-state dominance in Congress and the Electoral College. It wasn’t a moral endorsement—it was a tragic trade-off in a crisis where no union was possible without Southern buy-in. The document stayed silent on “property in man” in ways that left room for anti-slavery arguments later (as Frederick Douglass would use). Critics today call it “defective from the start” through a presentist lens—judging 1787 by 2026 standards, ignoring the global reality of slavery then and the risk of total collapse without compromise. The Founders knew, they were – all of us are flawed; they built a mendable system (amendments, ongoing consent) that could evolve through choice and struggle, not perpetual coercion.
This aligned with nature’s grain: Autonomy as baseline, chosen bonds for survival (mutual defense, commerce), active limits to avoid over-competition or tyranny. Voluntary over forced. Consent over conquest. It wasn’t perfect—slavery, exclusion of women and natives—but it created a framework that could (and did) change through internal evolution, not external overthrow.
One system showed a better way. We’ll look at how to live it next.
One consent at a time.
—The Grateful Immigrant Saint Paul, Minnesota
January 23, 2026
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Grateful Immigrant 