Ominously, that debate was conducted almost exclusively among the soldiers of Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army. It took place during a pause in the bloody civil war fought to determine who should rule the British Isles — its king or its Parliament?
When states are required to defend themselves they are often forced to reach out beyond their elite power bases in search of the assistance of ordinary people. This requirement is, however, fraught with political dangers.
Once the state arms and trains ordinary people and sends them out to fight and die in its name, there is always the risk that they will begin to equate their own interests with those of the state they are defending.
Increasingly, the state and the people come to be perceived as one and the same. If the state cannot survive without the people, then, surely, it must recognise and include them in all of its deliberations. (It is no accident that the first three words of the preamble to the constitution of the United States are: "We, the People".)
In St Mary’s Church, Putney, the political claims of the "plain, russet-coated troopers" would be heard and debated.
Thomas Rainsborough, an officer sympathetic to the political claims of the rank-and-file Levellers, was chosen as one of their spokesmen. His speech has come down to us as the first serious pitch for universal male suffrage: "For really I think that the poorest He that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest He; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under."
Compare Rainsborough’s words with those of Thomas Jefferson, who, 129 years later, would compose the American Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed".
Cromwell, though he would soon "cut off the King’s head with the Crown upon it", turning England into a republic, was no egalitarian.
As chairman of the Army Council, he relied upon his ambitious young son-in-law, Sir Henry Ireton, to make the case for the elite-dominated parliamentary regime the New Model Army had been created to protect.
Ireton’s reasoning was as blunt as it was unequivocal: "No man hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom ... that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom."
And that, for those with a keen ear for ideological wrangling, is what this week’s American election was all about. Whether the poorest Americans, no less than the greatest Americans, "hath a life to live". Or, whether only those with a "permanent fixed interest" in the United States of America possess the requisite qualifications to determine and direct its future.
In a saner world, it would have been Kamala Harris playing the role of Colonel Rainsborough in this extraordinary political contest, and Donald Trump representing the uncompromising elitism of General Ireton.
In this world-turned-upside-down, however, it has been a down-and-dirty knife fight between the smug aristocracy of merit and the squalid commonwealth of ignorance.
Before the winner can be sworn in, however, nearly 11 weeks must pass. As the supporters of the successful candidate count down the days to Monday, January 20, 2025, the losing side may be pondering the words attributed to Robert Burton, Cromwell’s contemporary, who warned his readers that: "There’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip".
Sadly, democracy is still being debated.
●Chris Trotter is an Auckland writer and commentator.
