Classical Liberalism and Liberalism

I've been lying awake, and letting ideas float across my head, and now I'm going to try and put a specific historical/philosophical idea out there, maybe the boldest one I've even put in print and in a public place.

Libertarians (and certain types of Conservatives) think they're direct descendants of Classical Liberals--maintaining the views of Thomas Jefferson as everyone else mucks around with that legacy.

They're not.

Sean Wilentz and/or E.J. Dionne, I believe, has said that 'Liberalism is an impulse, an attitude'--that innervates modern society on the Left and that does not equate to the philosophy of Classical Liberalism. But what does he mean by this 'attitude'? What are the specifics in terms of ideas and policies?

Well, let us see: Liberalism, the word, originates from Liberty, yes, but it identifies, even in the 'Classical' period a body of (somewhat varying) ideas and attitudes developing in the western intellectual classes and elsewhere throughout society, especially the middle classes. The French were more Laisseiz Faire (spelling?) (some of the Scots, too), but also included in most of Liberalism, aside from individual rights, and a Liberal Democracy founded on protection of those rights--was a sense of noblesse oblige and common purpose as a society: Civic Republicanism--the other half of Liberalism, even the Classical kind.

 That's why, though the states wrote semi-rigid rules for the Federal Government (they were operating under recent trauma and a fear of a central authority), they retained to themselves the instruments of law and government. That's why, though Liberals of the eighteenth century were often concerned with preventing economic meddling that would distort markets and make people less free (because this, in part, is what the Imperialist/Mercantilist nations were doing), this tells us more about the way that impulse led to policy outcomes to serve the greater good IN THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES. It does not tell us that the overall philosophy was a libertarian one.

I could cite numerous eighteenth century laws passed just after the constitution to make this point, and links later, but for the moment I will just note that a reading of the letters of Thomas Jefferson shows many passages indicating his belief that society and government must come together at times for the common good. His own presidency accepted most of the practical innovations the Federalists had created to run government and expand it to the point it functioned, and it closed with a huge interference (blockage of US participation) in international trade. Neither Jefferson, nor his cohorts, were libertarians. Oh, Jefferson was a bit on the Libertarianish side of the things compared to your average founding  father, maybe, but he was still part of the larger tradition we simply, and correctly, call: Liberalism--who wrote the US government's capacity 'to protect the common welfare' into the Constitution's preamble.

Classical Liberalism is not equal to Liberalism? False choice. Classical Liberalism was a manifestation of Liberal attitudes and ideas about the decency of all human life in the eighteenth century. Social Liberalism (or Modern American Liberalism) is the manifestation in our own. Conservativism draws on aspects of it, but ignores what it doesn't like and makes changes material to suit its own purposes.