More significantly, the Progressives held that truths
were not permanent but only relative to their time.
They rejected the self-evident truth of the Declaration
that all men are created equal and are endowed equally,
either by nature or by God, with unchanging rights. As
one prominent Progressive historian wrote in 1922,
“To ask whether the natural rights philosophy of the
Declaration of Independence is true or false, is
essentially a meaningless question.” Instead,
Progressives believed there were only group rights that
are constantly redefined and change with the times.
Indeed, society has the power and obligation not only to
define and grant new rights, but also to take old rights
away as the country develops.
Based on this false understanding of rights, the
Progressives designed a new system of government.
Instead of securing fundamental rights grounded in
nature, government—operating under a new theory of
the “living” Constitution—should constantly evolve to
secure evolving rights.
In order to keep up with these changes, government
would be run more and more by credentialed
managers, who would direct society through rules and
regulations that mold to the currents of the time.
Before he became President of the United States,
Woodrow Wilson laid out this new system whereby
“the functions of government are in a very real sense
independent of legislation, and even constitutions,”
meaning that this new view of government would
operate independent of the people.
Far from creating an omniscient body of civil servants
led only by “pragmatism” or “science,” though,
progressives instead created what amounts to a fourth
branch of government called at times the bureaucracy
or the administrative state. This shadow government
never faces elections and today operates largely without
checks and balances. The founders always opposed
government unaccountable to the people and without
constitutional restraint, yet it continues to grow around
us.
