I. The Founding Fathers and the Internal Contradictions of Their Vision of Freedom

The political philosophy of the American Founding Fathers is often treated as the apex of Enlightenment liberalism—an articulation of universal liberty, self-government, and the inherent dignity of the individual. Yet when analyzed at the level of theory alone, without reference to the social injustices of the eighteenth century, their vision reveals deep structural contradictions. The ideals they proclaimed cannot coexist with the institutional architecture they designed, nor with the conceptual assumptions they inherited. Even if one imagines a hypothetical society in which no racial, gendered, or economic exclusions existed, the Founders’ model of liberty would still be internally incoherent. Their own theoretical premises undermine each other and render the realization of a universally free society impossible.

  1. Natural Rights and the Paradox of Government-Granted Freedom

The Founders grounded their politics in the belief that individuals possess natural, inalienable rights—rights that exist prior to any government. Yet they simultaneously claimed that the purpose of government is to secure these rights. This creates a conceptual paradox. If a right must be secured by an authority, it is necessarily vulnerable to that authority. A government that can protect a right can also limit, redefine, or revoke it. In this sense, the Founders inadvertently placed natural rights in a dependent position, contradicting their own claim that such rights are inherent and beyond political alteration. Their structure presumes that liberty can be both pre-political and politically maintained—a synthesis that is philosophically impossible.

  1. Consent of the Governed and the Limits of Representation

The Founders framed legitimate political authority as resting on the “consent of the governed.” Yet the governmental form they designed—an expansive, centralized republic—renders genuine consent practically and theoretically unattainable. In a representative system, individuals do not govern themselves; they select others who then govern on their behalf. Representation substitutes individual agency with the mediated decisions of an elite few. This substitution becomes even more profound in a large republic, where scale inherently dilutes individual influence. Although the Founders portrayed representation as a mechanism for expressing the will of the people, it functions instead as a mechanism for managing the people’s will. This is not merely a practical limitation but a theoretical contradiction: a political system cannot derive legitimacy from consent that is structurally impossible to express.

  1. Filtered Democracy: Madison’s Fear of the People

The contradictions deepen when examining the Founders’ explicit distrust of direct democracy. In The Federalist Papers, Madison argues that popular rule is dangerous because citizens are volatile, irrational, and prone to “faction.” His solution is to filter popular input through layers of institutional mediation. But such filtering undermines the very democratic principles the Founders rhetorically endorsed. The Constitution was designed to blunt majoritarian influence, stabilize elite power, and create a political system insulated from rapid change. In this respect, the Founders’ political theory contains a self-negating premise: they claim to establish a government “of the people,” while simultaneously constructing mechanisms that limit the people’s ability to govern. The ideal of collective self-rule collapses into a system that treats popular sovereignty as a threat to be managed rather than a principle to be realized.

  1. The State as Protector and Threat: The Central Contradiction

Another major contradiction lies in the Founders’ insistence that government must be strong enough to secure rights while constrained enough to prevent tyranny. They sought a balance between necessary power and necessary limits, yet their model cannot escape its own internal tensions. A government powerful enough to enforce laws, maintain order, and protect property is powerful enough to restrict liberty. Conversely, a government weak enough to avoid authoritarianism may be too weak to provide security or stability. This tension is not a practical challenge but a logical impossibility. One cannot design an institution that is strong enough to compel obedience yet too weak to become oppressive. The Founders believed they had achieved this equilibrium, but the equilibrium itself is a contradiction—freedom enforced by coercion, autonomy bounded by authority.

  1. The Social Contract as a Fiction of Voluntary Submission

The Founders frequently invoked the idea of the social contract to justify the creation of the state—an agreement in which individuals willingly submit to government for the sake of mutual protection. Yet this contract is not, and cannot be, voluntary. Individuals are born into political communities where participation is expected and exit is practically impossible. They inherit obligations without having chosen them. Thus, the very concept that legitimizes the Founders’ political order is based on a fiction. A contract that cannot be refused is not a contract but a condition of existence. In this sense, the Founders’ appeal to consent does not solve the problem of political authority; it disguises it.

  1. Rule of Law: Freedom Through Restriction

The Founders celebrated the rule of law as the guarantor of liberty. But law, by its nature, restricts freedom. It constrains personal autonomy and imposes uniform obligations that individuals must obey regardless of their personal will. The more laws exist to “protect” liberty, the more constricted individual action becomes. This tension cannot be resolved within the Founders’ framework because the rule of law is both the instrument of liberty and its limitation. The Founders attempted to present law as neutral, objective, and liberating, yet law inevitably serves the interests of those who create it and confines the autonomy of those who are bound by it. The contradiction is not merely practical but conceptual: liberty cannot simultaneously expand and contract through the same mechanism.

Conclusion of Section I

Even if one assumes a world in which every individual is treated equally, without racial hierarchy, gender exclusion, or economic stratification, the Founders’ political theory remains internally incoherent. Their model of freedom relies on structures that undermine freedom. Their ideas of consent depend on mechanisms that eliminate consent. Their social contract is involuntary by definition. Their rule of law restricts the very autonomy it claims to protect. And their balancing act between state power and individual liberty attempts to reconcile forces that are theoretically incompatible. The contradictions were not merely implemented—they were baked into the Founders’ vision from the start.