By Fr. Gassalasca Jape, S.J.

When I first heard Austin Bramwell was advocating a “conservatism of legitimacy” I thought to myself, “It’s about time.” The prerogatives of true born sons—much neglected in recent centuries—have always been the best hedge against disorder and anarchy. Such is the reason the Church has always taken such an interest in the subject, and rightfully so.

But then I realized he wasn’t referring to that kind of legitimacy. More’s the pity.

Instead, Bramwell—himself a favored son of the conservative patriarchy (with a coat of many colors to prove it!) and now self-appointed scourge of all things “movement”—articulates the following conservative ruling philosophy: “Conservatism is the defense of legitimacy wherever it happens to exist. ‘Legitimacy’ here is defined in the empirical, Weberian sense: that is, an institution is legitimate if and only if the opinion has become widespread that it is right (for whatever reason or lack thereof) to obey it. The conservative, in short, cultivates obedience to existing institutions.” Of course Bramwell is not the first conservative theorist to hinge his philosophy of rule on legitimacy. Both James Burnham and Willamore Kendall were, in their own fashion, legitimists. And I wager Bramwell has or would spare them the worst of his anti-movement polemics.

Upon reading this I, like any good Public University product, quickly reached for my Bartlett’s book of Quotations. Curiously, Bartlett finds only two references to “legitimacy” worthy of quotability. First, Thos. Jefferson, in one of his unfortunate school-girl moods, saying that the “care of human life and happiness, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

The second, more promising bit comes from that grand old Federalizer himself, Justice John Marshall, who, while simultaneously upholding the Constitutionality of the central banking system and gutting state sovereignty, wrote in his landmark McCulloch v. Maryland decision that any government act which was taken towards a legitimate end and not expressly forbidden was constitutional. Metaphysical legitimacy was thus made helpmeet to the institution of American federal government, burnishing it with a shine of empirical legitimacy.

Still, my research was incomplete. Thank the Saints for YouTube! There I found the poetic stylings of one MC Hammer entitled “Too Legit to Quit.”

Here is illustrated the flaw, or danger, of conservatism as a defense of legitimacy. It will necessarily devolve into a defense of any institution with legitimacy. Mr. Hammer gives us the perfect hip-hop sturm to the Hank Paulson inspired drang of “too big to fail.” The line of legitimacy runs straight and true from Marshall’s McCulloch decision to Paulson’s trillion-dollar bailout. The central banking system encrusted with monied interest barnacles is, it appears, too legit, too legit to quit—and all efforts on its behalf are, ipso facto, necessary and proper. I doubt this is the kind of conservatism Bramwell has in mind.