But I question your premise here. How was pre-1900 US a libertarian society, if (for most of the period) slavery was permitted, women could not vote, children could work in factories. Inarguably there is MORE freedom in the US now than before 1900. You have to ignore the plight of over half the population to argue otherwise.
In other words, when you argue that pre-1900 America was more libertarian than post, you must be saying that freedom from “government regulation” (as embodied by the eeeeevil FDA, EPA, etc.) is more important to libertarians than freedom from slavery and disenfranchisement. Is it? Just curious.
We can respect the “founding fathers” (though several held slaves) without worshiping them. I see no reason to try to “live up to” them, they lived in a completely different time and place. Their most important contribution was not creating a system of “limited government” – the real debt we owe to them is that they created a system with the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances. And the world has changed – greatly – since the late 1700s.
And in any case, when you talk about the ideals of the founding fathers, which ones are you talking about? Jefferson? Madison? Adams? Their ideas were far from identical, and if they lived today would probably have quite different views on the merits of present-day liberalism vs conservatism vs libertarianism, etc…
In fact, since they clearly understood the value of separation of powers, I suspect many of them would have been in favor of strong, regulatory government as a counterweight to growing corporate power (basically nonexistent in their day).
