British philosopher Antony Flew once cautioned against turning generalizations into tautologies when faced with new information. If an ostensible Scotsman puts sugar on their porridge, despite your conviction that no Scotsmen take sugar with their porridge, you are faced with a decision: you may admit that some Scotsmen do, in fact, sugar their porridge, or take the act of sugaring as sufficient proof that such men are not true Scotsmen. This appeal to purity entrenches its champion against new evidence and strains conversation. Discussing Progressivism will sometimes invite such arguments.

　　In his recent review of Sean Beienburg’s Progressive States’ Rights: The Forgotten History of Federalism, Samuel Postell argues that “Beienburg avoids pinning down the national progressives because he relies on the activity of those at the state level to prove that progressives were committed to states’ rights. In doing so, he uncovers a forgotten and unstudied faction within progressivism. It is unclear, however, to what extent these actors can be seen as true expositors of either progressivism or states’ rights.” True Progressives, Postell contends, adhere to the idea that “human nature and fundamental principles of justice are not fixed, objective, and knowable. For progressives, the undefinable goal of human progress determines what government ought to do and how it ought to do it. … Because human nature progresses, so must our understanding of freedom and law.” In short, Postell concludes that Woodrow Wilson is the true progressive, and those who may have desired progressive policies but did not share Wilson’s skepticism for founding principles and constitutionalism were not truly progressives.

　　Beienburg, controversially according to Postell, ignores the idea that “Progressivism and conservatism are, fundamentally, theories about human nature and the role of government. Progressives and conservatives cannot be simply defined by their time, place, and isolated actions in response to political circumstances.” The focus of Progressive States’ Rights, on progressive state political actors pre-New Deal, is, therefore, a limp attempt to understand a well-defined political theory with national implications and far-reaching consequences.

　　Understanding the Progressive Era, however, does require an appreciation for time, place, and the activities that politicians engaged in. Time and place matter; that’s where theories were tested, proven, frustrated, or discarded. It is the function of American Political Development studies, like Beienburg’s, to read history forward and focus on how ideas collided and merged in the movements of pivotal people that led to certain conclusions, not only at the national level but also in state and local arenas.

　　The Copper State

　　Collapsing progressive policy views, ideas about human nature, and disdain for American constitutionalism into a single package representing true progressivism is understandably tempting. Yet, as Beienburg and I have recently argued in American Political Thought, striking tensions emerge in the thoughts and actions of key state leaders, like Michael Cunniff, the man most responsible for Arizona’s radical constitution, as they attempted to reconcile their desire for progressive policies at the state level with conservative views of constitutional federalism.

　　Progressives, who ranked among both Democrats and Republicans, united generally over desires for institutional and social reforms, but disagreed, for a variety of reasons, on how American constitutionalism could help them achieve these goals. It is imperative that we recognize and track President Woodrow Wilson’s hostility toward the structures of American constitutionalism and its principles as a particularly virulent strain of progressivism. Wilson and others—Theodore Roosevelt, Richard Ely, and Herbert Croly to name a few—espoused certain ideas that proved influential to later New Deal-progressivism. These certain ideas are well documented. Focusing on one peculiar arrangement of ideas alone, however, obscures much of the reality on the ground in the early twentieth century.

　　“Conservative progressivism” indicates a conservative view of the constitutional relationship between the federal and state governments paired with a vision of robust state police powers useful for implementing progressive policies. Consider the case of Arizona through the lens of two of its early progressive leaders: Michael Cunniff and Arizona’s first governor George Hunt.

　　The political development perspective is not anti-theory, but rather places theory in context, where it breathes life into civil discourse. Truth is unchanging, political theories and ideas are not.

　　Michael Cunniff (1875–1914), a Harvard-educated transplant to Arizona from Massachusetts, brought to the West an anti-monopoly progressivism that sought to constrain markets, while defending them. He defended traditional understandings of American constitutional federalism, but believed that this permitted more active state governments, channeled through direct democratic institutional features like the referendum, initiative, and recall. He also defended the separation of powers, but desired additional checks on courts to prevent their opinions from coming from justices’ policy preferences and not the Constitution’s mandates.

　　Cunniff was a nativist, who shared some national progressives’ views on the advancement of American civilization: such as applauding, along with Roosevelt, brutal allotment practices in Oklahoma, and criticizing, along with Croly, Catholicism. Yet Cunniff did not attack parties or seek to separate politics from administration. As the member at the 1910 constitutional convention most influential on the wording of the final document and one of Arizona’s first legislative leaders, his views resonated with his contemporaries during that pivotal time of state development. His hesitation on women’s suffrage cost him some popularity before his sudden death at thirty-nine, but Cunniff was no outlier in the Copper State.

　　The “ardently progressive” George Hunt (1859–1934), Beienburg writes in Progressive States’ Rights, “supported a robust, active, and definitely not limited Arizona government.” At the same time, Governor Hunt, like his friend and ally Cunniff, was committed to decentralized federalism and a strict construction of the United States Constitution. Consider Hunt’s own words to Oklahoma Governor William Murray on the matter:

　　While the old idea of the right of the states to nullify federal laws is gone, it does not follow that while the federal government is supreme in its field, the states are not equally supreme in their own. … It appears to me that where new questions arise that obviously were not contemplated by the makers of the constitution, they should be handled either by the states, in accordance with the reserve power in the 10th Amendment, or granted to the federal government by proper constitution amendments, rather than by strained legal decisions of the Supreme Court.

　　None of his contemporaries doubted that Hunt was a Progressive. He supported unicameralism, initiatives, referenda, and recalls while also championing the use of state police powers to check businesses, protect workers, and accomplish other social reforms. The 48th state’s first governor was also re-elected seven times, reflecting his widespread popularity in Arizona.

　　Arizonans were not simply strange mavericks either (we are strange, yes, but during the Progressive Era, the tendency toward conservative progressivism was not limited to Arizona leaders like Cunniff and Hunt). The even more progressive Oklahoma Constitution of 1907 drew the praise of William Jennings Bryan, for example, who also advocated a connection between states’ rights and the Left. Progressive States’ Rights provides a detailed assessment of similar occurrences of conservative progressivism across the country, a position that appeared to be more widely held at the time than Wilson’s variant.

　　Ideas Matter

　　Part of the reason that scholars have had such difficulty, as Daniel T. Rodgers noted, searching for progressivism is that the initial political movement entertained multiple visions of American constitutionalism and social policy. While the rough “languages of discontent” that inspired Progressives included anti-monopolism, an emphasis on social bonds, and social efficiency, these did not add up to a unified theory. Progressives spoke in many tongues.

　　American Political Development research, as I argue in my upcoming book, is well-suited to uncovering nuances in political history. Ideas matter, and to understand how they have affected a state or a nation we need to see them emerge, conflict, and transform. In some respects, attempting to define or identify true progressivism misses the point. The political development perspective is not anti-theory, but rather places theory in context, where it breathes life into civil discourse. Truth is unchanging, political theories and ideas are not.

　　Underneath the fading portrait of a unified Progressive Era theory to which we may be accustomed is a vibrant painting of ideas and colorful characters. Appreciating the gradations in the Progressive Era may better enable us to see nuances today, distinctions between different sorts of progressives (and, indeed, conservatives) that may open up more avenues for conversation and healthy civil disagreement.

　　Some national elites, like Roosevelt, Wilson, and Croly, disdained the separation of powers in favor of an unbridled implementation nationwide of their policy preferences. Conservative progressives, on the other hand, like Cunniff and Hunt, sought to use a robust conception of state police powers to affect social change intrastate, while pushing back against federal government overreach.

　　In short, yes, progressives ate porridge; some used sugar too.