Political Theories for Students

and legislators, realizing such dangers, proposed and often enacted laws regulating the market, and the purchase and inheritance of land, among other things, with a view to ameliorating the conflict between rich and poor. To take the sting out of the economic inequality that remained, most poleis had sumptuary laws to forbid conspicuous displays of wealth. Many had customs and even laws to insure that the rich applied some of their wealth to public works, or entertainment, or to serve other public needs.

Third, commerce promotes individualism and selfishness. It threatens to substitute the bottom line for the common good and personal wealth for the commonwealth. Whereas the citizen views fellow citizens as friends and even brothers, the merchant must view them as potential sources of profit. Whereas the citizen is tied to fellow citizens by shared convictions and attachments, merchants are bound to those with whom they deal by shared interest and by contracts. Whereas the citizen must exhibit a spirit of generous self– sacrifice, the merchant must take care not to give without getting in return. The merchant’s values, from the classical citizenship perspective, are indifferent or even harmful. Moreover, the merchant, whose wealth is portable, is not attached to the polis as, for example, is the farmer, whose life is rooted in the soil of his homeland.

Fourth, commerce, when it extends to other poleis, opens citizens to foreign ideas and threatens unity of opinion. The Piraeus, the port of Athens, was known for its openness to innovation. Indeed, Plato (428–348 A.D.) sets his most famous dialogue, the Republic, in the Piraeus where, he tells us, a novel religious festival, devoted to a goddess new to Athens, is to take place. The ancients understood, Rahe said, the connection between economic and philosophic and political speculation, that “commerce in goods inevitably gives rise to a commerce in ideas.” Once one opens oneself to foreign goods, one risks opening oneself to foreign gods. For this reason, Aristotle proposes that while a polis should engage in commerce, it should also enact “legislation which states and defines those who may or may, or may not, have dealings with one another.”

New ideas It may surprise that classical republicanism so concerns itself with shutting out new ideas. Classical republican theory, in fact, devalues not only commerce but innovation altogether. In one section of his Politics, Aristotle attacks what would seem to most a harmless and perhaps useful proposal, that “honors should be conferred on those responsible for any invention of benefit to the city.” Aristotle, however, worries less about a society that embraces a single new

invention than one embracing the spirit of invention too enthusiastically. For to the classical republican, the spirit of invention is a threat to the law, obedience to which is secured not by pure reason but above all by custom, habit, and belief. From this perspective, to subject the laws to constant scrutiny and revision is reckless because it weakens them without cause. One must always weigh the benefits of innovation, even when good, against the danger of undermining laws and of unsettling the convictions upon which the force of law in general depends.

More broadly, the classical republic, because it demands so much virtue and solidarity, must be more cautious about admitting new ideas. Classical republicans believed no more than modern political theorists believe that human beings naturally sacrifice their own good for the public good, that they are naturally willing to die for each other, or that they spontaneously develop the ties of affection that citizens of a polis share. The works of classical political philosophy are filled with examples of the patriotic myths, among other things, that legislators must devise to bind a people. Because classical political theorists and legislators understood the difficulties of transforming humans into citizens, and how fragile the final product would be, they were cautious about exposing citizens to novel theories that might undermine their hard–won devotion.

The difficulty and importance of transforming human beings into citizens ready to meet their extensive obligations to the polis explains another facet of classical republican political theory, its overwhelming emphasis on education. Shaping the character of citizens was the first concern of ancient law. Education was directed toward developing citizen virtues as much as skills. It involved parents and tutors, and primarily by means of art and music. Among the most shocking features of Plato’s Republic for the modern reader are both the minute attention this work on politics pays to the content and even the rhythm of poetry and the policy of censorship it proposes for the best city. Ancient theorists and legislators were mindful of beautiful art and music being more likely than rational speech to move people, especially the young. Therefore they paid attention to what dramas citizens heard, the festivals they attended, and even the buildings and statues they saw.

Religion Religion, too, is an educational component for the classical republican. In fact, the poetry to which Plato pays so much attention in the Republic is about the gods, and the content he proposes to revise and regulate concerns their character and actions. It would hardly do to take such care about so many of the things

that bring human beings together or pull them apart and then neglect their beliefs about the divine and the relevant rewards and punishments. Though the ordinary Greek was pious, Plato was not the only ancient classical thinker to suggest that founders and statesmen should modify and even invent stories about the gods to shape their native countrymen or persuade them to accept a law or policy. While perhaps few Greeks or Romans went that far, the less radical view of polis concerns with the religious beliefs of citizens was more common.

When he compared life in the classical republic to that in a monastery, Montesquieu spoke for liberal republicanism. He did not mean it as a compliment. Classical republicanism and traditional Christianity had, for liberal republicans, a common defect. Both tended to foster inhumanity and fanaticism in asking their adherents to devote themselves single–mindedly to a set of beliefs. The result in the classical case was the constant warfare that characterized polis life and, in the Christian case, the violent wars of religion that plagued Christendom.

While classical republicanism aimed too high, it expected too little. Classical republicans had not grasped that the judicious use of natural and political science could accrue peace and prosperity, and greatly relieve human suffering. According to liberal republicanism, it was possible to devise economic and political institutions that could make use of self–interest, which classical republicanism had so harshly suppressed, to serve the common good.

Liberal Republicanism

Liberal republicanism denies that humans are simply or primarily political. Instead, it insists on the dignity as human beings as laboring animals, who tame and transform the natural world. Whereas the classical republican finds human dignity above all in the capacity to reason about justice and the common good, the liberal republican finds at least as much to praise in turning barren wilderness into a comfortable home, conquering disease, and alleviating poverty. Liberal republicans see commercial activity as a means for self–interested individuals to better their own wealth, and that of others. According to this outlook, the classical citizen was, in many ways, an idle troublemaker, forever engaged in controversy in the public square. Liberal republicanism, therefore, views politics as an arena for passionate and dangerous quarrels about justice. Instead, politics is primarily a means of protecting and even enhancing the private and, on the whole, modest and pacific pursuits of industrious citizens. As political theorist Thomas Pangle explained in The Spirit of Modern Republicanism, “the

Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.

(Corbis Corporation)

American Framers,” who embody the spirit Pangle described, “tend to honor political participation somewhat less as an end and considerably more as a means to the protection of . . . personal rights.” In fact, the diminished prestige of political participation means participation through representatives is preferable to direct participation.

Differences Plainly, liberal republicanism exacts far less of its citizens than does classical republicanism. It consequently depends less on virtue and, far from devaluing commerce and innovation, is able to

Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence, then an independent city, on May 3, 1569. His father, Bernardo, was a lawyer and, like many Florentines, admired classical learning. He made sure Niccolò received an extensive classical education. At the time such an education could open the door to political office, and in 1498, at age 29, Machiavelli was appointed head of the second chancery of the Florentine Republic and, shortly thereafter, Secretary to the Ten of War. As the latter, he took part in diplomatic missions and observed the affairs of the powerful up close. His public career ended abruptly in 1512, when the Republic collapsed and the Medici family was restored to power in Florence. Machiavelli, suspected of conspiracy against that family, was arrested in 1513 and tortured before being released and compelled to retreat to his country home, south of Florence. There, he turned his attention to the works that secured his fame. He died in 1527.

Machiavelli’s best–known book is The Prince, whose main subject is not the republic but rule of one man. It is infamous for recommending fraud and murder and, more generally, for its open acknowledgment that to rule successfully one must cast aside conven-

tional morality and “learn to be able not to be good.” Machiavelli, however, also wrote the Discourses, a book that appears to favor republics and secured his reputation as a republican political theorist. In adopting the same ruthlessly realistic stance as The Prince does, however, the Discourses are a deliberate departure from the republicanism of Machiavelli’s predecessors. They aimed to and succeeded in establishing a new republicanism.

Machiavelli founded modern republicanism. It followed him in consciously lowering its sights and seeking not to perfect human beings through political activity, but to place the low but dependable passions of imperfect human beings, like the love of wealth, in the service of achievable goals, such as prosperity. While successors such as Montesquieu and Locke would seek to tame Machiavelli’s teaching and found a liberal republicanism that was less militaristic and more hospitable toward human freedom, and while there was considerable disagreement among Machiavelli’s successors about the shape of republican life, modern republicanism would never altogether abandon the perspective of its hard–headed founder.

embrace both with enthusiasm. For these reasons, it almost seems misleading to apply the same term, republicanism, to both classical and modern politics. However, liberal republicanism, though a truly radical break from classical republicanism, has more in common with its predecessor than it first seems.

Most importantly, liberal republicans agree with classical republicans that tyranny is an insult to human nature. While the authors of the Federalist Papers criticized the ancients for emphasizing direct political participation too much, they nonetheless agreed with the classical republicans that any defensible politics had to rest on “the capacity of mankind for self–government.” They thought it important to vindicate human nature by demonstrating that it was possible for a society to establish “good government from reflection and choice.” In holding this opinion, which characterizes liberal republicanism, they arguably exceeded the republican hopes of the ancients, who, after all, made so much of the need in politics, and es-

pecially in political foundings, to deceive the people. They were, as Pangle observed, “far from neglecting the dignity of man as citizen,” even as they guarded the dignity of private man.

Further, while liberal republicanism needs virtue much less than its classical counterpart, it does not altogether neglect it, either. Returning to the Federalist Papers, we learn that for republican government to exist, there must be “sufficient virtue” in the people and its leaders. Undoubtedly, liberal republicanism drastically reduces the amount of self–restraint and self–sacrifice that self–government requires, but “republican government,” still, presupposes more “than any other form” of government those “qualities of human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence,” or trust. We learn that the most important restraint on the House of Representatives is “the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America.” Unquestionably, vigilance in defense of one’s own liberty, supported so strongly by self–

interest, counters human nature far less than the virtue practiced by the classical citizen. But it does not arise spontaneously, either, and requires considerable effort. Even the modern republic demands that citizens be responsible, however indirectly, for governing themselves, and therefore demands more virtue than other forms of government.

Not surprisingly then, liberal republican theorists and statesmen concerned themselves with education. However, the character of the virtues to be taught has important implications for the character of the education required. “Liberal virtues,” Steven Kautz maintained, “are reasonable virtues.” However much courage and capacity for self–restraint vigilance in defense of one’s own freedom may require, it is fairly easy to make a case for it. It is hard to be vigilant but easier to be convinced that it is in one’s own long–term interest to be so. In contrast, it is extremely hard both to practice the virtue the classical polis requires and to be convinced that it is reasonable and in one’s own interest. Because liberal republicanism depends on reasonable virtues, liberal republican education need not aim at transformation; it does not have to convert a self–interested human being into a self–negating citizen. It can aim, instead, at enlightenment, at persuading someone with a narrow or short–sighted understanding of his or her interests, or a poor understanding of how to protect them, to take a more expansive view. That is not to say that liberal republicans can afford to dispense with the kinds of poetic and religious appeals upon which classical republicans rely so much. Liberal republican citizens, too, must commit great sacrifices, and no dry argument will move most, if any, human beings to die on the battlefield. Even in peacetime, liberal virtues being reasonable does not mean citizens must be reasonable all the time. Nonetheless, it is accurate to say that liberal republican theorists, because they are so much less ambitious in what they expect education to accomplish, are much more confident than classical republican theorists that citizens can be enlightened.

THEORY IN ACTION

The United States is the most prominent and influential example of the modern liberal republic. It is difficult, however, to understand the United States without understanding that its founders thought they had learned much from the previous experience of humanity in republican government. Republican theory and had been found so wanting that, as the Federal-

ist Papers sharply assert, had modern republicanism not improved on ancient republicanism, “the enlightened friends of liberty would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that species of government as indefensible.” To understand republicanism in practice, then, we begin with the ancient example of Sparta, that Greek city which, by implementing the classical republican idea in the most extreme manner, provided students of republicanism with a vivid portrait of that idea in action.

Sparta

Sparta was an extreme but revealing example of the classical republic. The Spartans had many foreign enemies and were, in addition, vastly outnumbered by the helots, conquered peoples whom they compelled to work their land. Internal and external threats pushed Sparta to emphasize, even more so than the other classical republics, solidarity over privacy; Sparta, therefore, was as much a military as a political unit.

Boys were removed from their homes and from the guidance of their parents at age seven. They joined a group of boys their own age and began the physical and mental training necessary to fight and persuade them to devote themselves completely to the common good. They would welcome death in battle as the highest honor. Those who successfully completed the rigorous education then joined a “common mess,” a group of men who lived, ate, and fought together as a unit. While a Spartan was expected to marry before the age of 45, he did not live in his own home until he reached that age. Such regulations indicate the extent to which Spartans insisted that individuals submit to the demands of the polis. Perhaps the most striking instance is this: in Sparta, babies judged too weak or deformed to be useful citizen–soldiers were killed.

Sparta, perhaps more than any other classical republic, worried about the dangers commerce posed to solidarity. The Spartan citizen was simply forbidden to engage in commerce and could not own silver or gold. Spartan currency was, by design, difficult to transport and use. The Spartans devised several ways to ease economic inequality and its social tensions. The polis granted its citizens equal shares of public land and helots to work it. As some land was still privately owned, the gap between rich and poor remained, but it was relatively narrow. Rich and poor received the same tough education and dined on the same fare in the common messes. As in other classical republics, the rich were restricted in using their wealth and could not flaunt it. The wealthy, in fact, were expected to make at least some of their property available for the use of other citizens.

Isolation The Spartans shared, too, the classical republic’s resistance to foreign ideas. In this, as in other matters, the Spartans took the classical idea to an extreme conclusion. Spartan citizens could not travel abroad without the permission of the authorities, and such travel was generally forbidden. Similarly foreigners were not allowed into Sparta without permission and were only admitted with compelling reason. Plutarch (c. 45–c.120 A.D.), writing of the legendary, and perhaps imaginary, Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, explains the reason for this prohibition: “With strange people, strange words must be admitted; these novelties produce novelties in thought.” For similar reasons, Sparta exercised censorship over poetry and music in the polis. One Spartan magistrate is said to have cut off two of the nine strings of a musical instrument, worrying that an extravagance in music could have led to parallel behavior.

In a classical world known for citizen education, Sparta stands out, and stood out even at the time, for how it transformed humans into hardened, loyal citizens. From the time the seven year old left his home, he was trained, with the help of music, poetry, religion, and even dance, to think of himself, as Paul Rahe said, “not as an individual, not as a member of a particular household, but as a part of the community.” His body was hardened through physical training that became increasingly grueling as he aged. Because a soldier was expected to be crafty as well as courageous and strong, the Spartan young had to steal to supplement their skimpy meals. If caught, they were whipped, not to discourage their stealing but to encourage them to improve at it. The Spartan’s ingenuity was further tested in the “period of concealment,” an important rite of passage in which the young man, about 20 years old, spent a year outside the community, living off his own strength and cunning. At each stage of their rigorous training, the youths were examined; to “graduate” was to have completed the transformation from soft, selfish human being to hardened, self–sacrificing, warrior–citizen.

For all that, the Spartans understood that perfect solidarity was impossible, even by their own intense, far–reaching education. In any polity, especially one in which citizens are trained early to be spirited, there is bound to be a struggle. The rich will want to establish an oligarchy. The poor will want to establish a democracy. The well–born or noble will want to establish an aristocracy. The most prominent of these may wish to establish a monarchy. Even in such a community as Sparta, managing these different factions was necessary to avoid civil war. The Spartan strategy was to accommodate in part the most important elements, so that all would have a stake in pre-

serving the polity. The Spartans over time devised what was known as a mixed regime. The elements were so well–mixed that the Greeks hardly knew whether to call Sparta a monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, or democracy.

In parts Sparta was in part a monarchy because it had two kings. Kingship was hereditary and each king held office for life. Leading Spartan forces into battle, their power in the field was nearly absolute. They appointed officers, executed cowards, conducted religious sacrifices, and raised money and new troops. In a society often at war, these powers were important; by no means, however, were they the only power the kings had. Their power over adoptions and their leading role in arranging marriages for heiresses whose fathers had not found them husbands meant that they could help or hinder a family in its efforts to transfer and amass wealth through inheritance. Because they had privileged access to certain funds, such as the spoils taken from the enemy in battle, the kings could benefit their friends and harm their enemies economically. In a society which strangled commerce and in which the roads to fortune were few, such powers enabled the kings to wield formidable political influence. The kings were so powerful that the Spartans thought it necessary to have two of them, each watching over the other.

Sparta was in part a democracy because it had a popular assembly, consisting of all Spartan citizens that, within limits set by other bodies and officials, voted on the most important matters. In light of the aforementioned limits, however, Sparta arguably had a more important claim to democracy: it filled essentially by lot its most powerful office aside from the kingship, that of ephor. The Greeks viewed elections as an aristocratic device, since its aim was to insure that the best, an “elect,” serve. The lot, on the other hand, was a democratic device because it meant any citizen could be selected, as in a lottery, to hold office. The five ephors served only one year and were subject to review and perhaps punishment at the end of that year, but while in power they were in many ways, as a group, the kings’ equals. The ephors were so powerful that to some observers, a board of tyrannical dictators appeared to rule Sparta. At home, they enforced the sumptuary laws and kept watch over the all–important educational system. They alone could fine the kings for misconduct and even put them on trial for capital crimes. This was only the most impressive of their broad judicial powers. Legislatively, the ephors were empowered to summon the Assembly and Council of Elders. With the Council of Elders, they set the agenda for the Assembly. Finally, they

exercised great authority in foreign affairs by, among other things, determining when Spartans could travel abroad and when strangers could visit Sparta, receiving embassies, negotiating with other poleis, and calling up the army when necessary.

Finally, Sparta was in part an aristocracy because of its Council of Elders. This council consisted of thirty members, including the two kings. The other twenty–eight, all above age sixty, were elected, Rahe explained, “from the priestly caste that seems to have constituted the city’s ancient aristocracy” and were “always men of experience and proven worth.” With the ephors, they set the Assembly’s agenda and could nullify Assembly decisions that overstepped that agenda. With the ephors, they formed a jury for capital cases. This council of older men not only addressed the claim of the wisest and best to rule but also insured the wealthy that their interests would be represented to at least some extent in the polity. For the council—old, conservative, exclusive, and wealthy—was little inclined to support innovative laws to further narrowed the gap between rich and poor.

Sparta eventually collapsed. Always vulnerable because of its large and often rebellious helot population, it never recovered from its defeat to the city of Thebes in 379 B.C. Perhaps Sparta was destined to fail because it demanded so much of its populace. One such indication is that Spartans, renowned for their discipline at home, were also reputed for slackness and corruption when abroad. Even within Sparta, the laws against possessing gold and silver were widely ignored. Sparta, however, did not perish without leaving examples of virtue and military heroism that dazzled her contemporaries and fascinated even those who broke from the classical model.

The United States

Old forms of republicanism, classical and Christian both, contributed to the American founding, and the precise contributions of classical, Protestant, and modern elements in early American political thought is debated. Nonetheless, critics of classical republicanism unquestionably played a pivotal role in founding the United States. The authors of the Federalist Papers, thinking Sparta “little better than a well–regulated camp,” sought to found a distinctly modern republic, free of the defects of the old republicanism. They saw republicanism as needlessly harsh and unmindful of private dignity. Its solution to political conflict was worse than the problem itself, for it destroyed liberty. Moreover, the classical republican insistence on direct political participation, impassioned citizens settling the most controversial matters in the public square, made political conflict insoluble in any case. “It is impossi-

ble,” Alexander Hamilton says in the Federalist, “to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated.” The task of the American Constitution framers was to solve, with the help of advances in the “science of politics,” the problems of classical republicanism, so that a new republic, respectful of private liberty and well–shielded from dangerous political conflict, could vindicate the capacity of human beings to live free. The United States set out to put into practice the theory of liberal republicanism.

In the liberal republic, government exists not to make citizens virtuous but to protect their private pursuits. When the United States declared its independence in 1776, it declared itself, in effect, a liberal republic, since the Declaration of Independence says both that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” and that “Governments are instituted among men” to “secure these rights.” In the new republic, even the creator, or “Nature’s God” offers freedoms rather than commandments to human beings. This view of the divine diverges not only from classical republicanism, whose gods were called to transform human beings into virtuous citizens, but also from Christian republicanism, which even when respectful to political freedom did not understand rights to rank so much higher than duties in God’s eyes. The United States took up the new principles championed by Edmund Locke and others and enshrined them in the first of its founding documents.

The Federalist debates The Federalist Papers authors argued that the new idea of liberty upheld by the Declaration could not be maintained without a new political science. “The science of politics [had] received great improvement” in modern times. “The efficacy of various principles” that the ancients did not know in full, if at all, was “now well understood.” The 1781 Articles of Confederation, the first national constitution, had failed to take full advantage of those principles. But the 1787 Constitution that the Federalist Papers defended and which, with some amendment, has remained the law of the land in the United States, did take advantage of them in attempting to build a legal and institutional framework within which the new republicanism could prove superior.

Representation is among the most important principles of the new political science. Its purpose, according to the Federalist, is “to refine and enlarge the public views by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens.” So in the United States, citizens have a say in federal lawmaking not directly and in the public square, but indirectly, through the

MAJOR WRITINGS:

The Federalist Papers

The Federalist Papers are a collection of eighty– five essays in defense of the United States Constitution of 1787. Such a defense was a pressing necessity when the essays were written in 1787 and 1788, for the states had yet to approve the Constitution, and approval was by no means certain. Alexander Hamilton, a member of the convention that drafted the Constitution, and who would later be America’s first Secretary of the Treasury, suggested a complete defense of the Constitution that would not only lay out the case for it but also respond to all important objections. He recruited John Jay, who would later be the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and James Madison, who would become the fourth President of the United States, to write essays for the project. The three wrote under the pseudonym Publius, invoking the name of an ancient republican hero. The papers were published in newspapers in New York, Hamilton’s and Jay’s home state, and some were published in newspapers in a few of the other states. The Federalist Papers were also printed as a collection in two volumes.

The papers sought to prove that the individual states needed unification, that the Articles of Confederation, the first national constitution, could not bind the union, and that only such an energetic government as the Constitution would establish was up to that job. They sought to prove that the Constitution was genuinely republican and the only hope for republicanism. They described and argued in favor of the Con-

stitution’s provisions for the presidency, the House and Senate, and the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court. Perhaps most importantly, the authors of the Federalist Papers self–consciously stood for a new republicanism founded on a new science of politics. They were well aware that the Constitution was novel and sought to inspire the American people to pursue an extraordinary and almost unprecedented political experiment.

The first question that offers itself is whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America: with the fundamental principles of the Revolution: or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self–government. If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible” (Federalist#39).

While the direct influence of the Federalist Papers is difficult to measure, unquestionably it served as a kind of debater’s handbook for the Constitution’s supporters. But the collection’s influence is still more far–reaching, for Thomas Jefferson was not alone in regarding it as “the best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written.” Scholars and lawyers still read the Federalist, thinking it contains valuable insights into what the constitutional framers meant and how the Constitution should be interpreted. It is still read, too, alongside such works as Plato’s Republic and John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government.

legislators they elect to serve in the Senate and House of Representatives. Classical republican theorists had resorted to harsh measures and delicate devices to calm the dangers that arose when citizens participated actively and directly in affairs of state. The American founders held that republican government is in no way compromised when the will of the citizenry is filtered through representatives, and indeed demands it. In the United States, a member of the House of Representatives, among other things, must be at least twenty–five years of age, must win an election and, once elected,

serves for two years. The first two requirements are designed to produce a body wiser than the general population and more capable of perceiving the common good. The privilege of serving for two years is designed to produce a body that can at least distance itself from the passions of the moment and view a “big picture” where others tend to address short–term needs. The Senate, with its six–year terms and its requirement that members be at least age thirty, is still more elite and removed from temporary shifts in popular opinion than the House.

The constitutional framers, however, did not count on the goodness of representatives to solve the problem of public disorder and division for, as the Federalist acknowledges, representatives may be, despite the best of precautions, “men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs.” Consequently, the new republic depended on another principle of the new political science, which the Federalist calls “enlargement of the orbit” of republican government, or the application of republicanism to a large, populous territory. It is difficult to overestimate the novelty of this strategy, at which opponents of the Constitution scoffed. Classical republican theory had held that republican government was appropriate only for small territories with small populations, for the solidarity republicanism required could not be achieved in large, diverse nations. The constitutional framers turned what seemed to be a tremendous disadvantage, the projected size of the Union, into an advantage. The new republic would deal with the threat of political division not by imposing uniformity of opinion and interest but by multiplying differences of opinion and interest, thereby weakening the influence of any single, narrow, partisan view. In a small polity, rich and poor may divide the population, and the poor may unite to eliminate property rights. In a large polity, there may be farming, industrial, immigrant, and native poor, and manufacturing, agricultural, technological, Southern, and Northern rich. In such a diverse polity with so many fault lines, it is difficult to gather a majority to oppress a minority, and majorities are at least unlikely to reflect narrow partisan interests. Enlargement of the orbit breaks the strength of partisanship not by suppressing the interests and passions of individuals and groups, but by channeling such interests and passions so that, even without intending it, they tend toward the common good. In this way, the United States puts into practice a liberal republican theory, that self–interest can be made to serve the common good more certainly and effectively than virtue itself.

Separation of powers If representation and enlargement of the orbit of republican government tame political division, there remains the problem of tyranny. A government powerful enough to exert real influence over a large nation may more easily than most be used by an ambitious individual or group to rob the people of their freedoms. To frustrate would–be tyrants, the United States relies on another principle of the new science of politics, namely, separation of powers. The concept is this: to divide the power of governing among different departments or branches in such a way that one branch cannot exercise absolute power.

If one wanted to prevent a cannon from being fired in haste, someone might give one person the power to load the cannon, another the power to aim the cannon, and a third the power to fire it. Powers would then have defined and distributed powers so that one is ineffectual without the other and therefore difficult to abuse. Similarly the United States Constitution divides the power of governing among a legislative, executive, and judicial branch, in order to prevent tyranny. The power to make laws is ineffectual if one cannot enforce them, and the power to enforce the laws is ineffectual if one can neither decide which laws to enforce nor be sure that judges will accept one’s interpretation of the law. The powers of the legislators in Congress, the executive in the White House, and the justices of the Supreme Court are legally defined in such a way that they are difficult to use tyrannically.

But, as the Federalists explain, “power is of an encroaching nature” and legal barriers may be insufficient to prevent ambitious public officials from seizing power. An ambitious president, for example, may effectively law by issuing executive orders or regulations; ambitious Supreme Court Justices may infringe on the authority of the other branches by reinterpreting the Constitution so broadly as to force revolutionary change in the nation’s laws. However elegant a legal doctrine separation of powers may be, it fails, in the view of the Constitution’s framers, to take into account human psychology, above all the lust for power. For that reason, the Constitution depends on yet another remedy offered by the new science, namely, checks and balances. As the Federalist famously states, one must give “to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. . . .Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” For example, the president’s power to veto the laws the House and Senate passes is technically speaking a violation of separation of powers, since it gives a legislative power to the head of the executive branch. But such a power is necessary if the president, the one most personally interested in maintaining the executive power against legislative attempts to seize parts of it, can resist the legislature. It is true that the veto and other checks and balances are as much legal mechanisms subject to failure as the separation of powers. But the authors of the Federalist thought that formal laws that the most interested parties could immediately use would prevent tyranny better than formal laws that could only be enforced by appealing to judges who, because their interests and ambition are less directly involved, might be lukewarm to legislative and executive privileges.

John Jay. (AP/Worldwide Photos)

Checks and balances The new principle of checks and balances is another way for the Constitution to put liberal republican theory into practice by, in the words of the Federalist, “supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives,” so that “the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.” Nonetheless, the American founders did not think it possible to do without a certain kind of virtue or a certain kind of civil education. James Madison was perhaps most active but hardly alone in working for what might be called the “constitutionalization” of the American people, that is, the education of American citizens who would know and revere the Constitution and the Bill of Rights added

in 1791. Only such citizens could be expected to be vigilant in defending their own liberties.

Of course, the adoption of the Bill of Rights does not end the story of republicanism in the United States, though the Constitution has rarely been amended since. Here is a very small sample of the changes: the development of political parties; the direct popular election of Senators, who were at first chosen by their state legislatures; the expansion in size and power of the federal government relative to the state governments; the expansion of the role of the Supreme Court in public policy. As long as the Constitution still counts for something in American politics, Americans will continue to debate the merits and dangers of each variance from the plan of the nation’s founders and whether that plan was essentially good or fundamentally flawed. Similarly, although the United States is among the mightiest and wealthiest republics ever, its backers and detractors will continue to debate whether what was once called an “experiment” has succeeded at maintaining freedom.

ANALYSIS AND CRITICAL RESPONSE

Liberal republicanism entirely succeeded in supplanting classical republicanism and, for that reason, this section will focus on it. It has been some time since anyone has called for a return to the smallness, simplicity, and harshness of polis life. Nonetheless, liberal republicanism, measured by the big picture, remains an experiment. Few doubt that its willingness to channel rather than suppress individual self–interest and its openness to commerce and innovation has generated in many parts of the world a prosperity of which people had once only dreamed. Few doubt that its decision to depend less on virtue than on a new political science and the institutions and mechanisms it could devise has been at least a qualified success at achieving political stability and at fending off would–be tyrants. Nonetheless, liberal republicanism has been under constant attack by critics for its individualism and its faith in commerce, reason, and innovation.

Here is one criticism: liberal republicanism, if left to its own devices, leads to moral decline. After all, it unleashes innovation against custom and tradition, and self–interest against duty. The Declaration of Independence, which reveals much about liberal republicanism, looks up to “Nature and Nature’s God,” a God who speaks to human beings of what they have a right to do rather than of what they are commanded to do. The moral laxity of liberal republicanism may have been hidden early on when religion, custom, and

tradition still captivated people. But that new philosophy’s inability to inspire citizens manifests in high crime rates, drug use, family breakdown, and other social ills found in advanced liberal societies. All societies, even liberal ones, depend to some degree on citizen restraint. The question some critics of liberal republicanism raise is: does its deliberate strengthening of individualism and the spirit of reason and innovation come at the expense of the only means societies have of fostering self–restraint? To put it another way: does liberal republicanism undermine even the very limited moral virtue it, itself, requires?

Liberal republicanism may also cause political virtue to decline. Liberal citizens must, at the very least, remain vigilant. But it isn’t at all obvious that citizens, liberated to enjoy and seek pleasure and profit, will scrutinize their government. Jean–Jacques Rousseau said in The Social Contract that “as soon as someone says about affairs of State What do I care? the State has to be considered lost.” Critics of liberal republicanism argue that it tends to produce many such citizens. The liberal citizen may well not bother to know who their government officials are, let alone monitor them.

Rousseau feared that government officials soon discover they have more in common with each other than with the people they are supposed to serve. According to this argument, the government has an in- terest—whether in increasing its own power, or in profiting from office, or in getting reelected—that differs from the common interest, and prudent people should expect it to act on that interest when it can. It will enact pay increases at midnight; it will bury self–serving deeds in a thousand pages of legislation; it will make controversial announcements on Friday afternoons, when extensive media coverage or attention from constituents is unlikely. It can expect that, if some enterprising journalist uncovers a swindle and gets his or her story printed in the middle pages of a serious newspaper, very few hardworking and busy citizens will read it, let alone concern themselves with it. To make matters more difficult, the argument continues, governments tend to act this way out of collective self–interest, not individual immorality. To replace one corrupt elected official with another who seems less corrupt is unlikely to solve the problem. Instead, citizens must actively concern themselves with politics and with what their public servants are doing. This, however, the argument concludes, is precisely where liberal republican citizens fall short.

Size of the state Even were citizens to concern themselves more with what their public officials do, they might soon find that the size and complexity of mod-

ern states makes vigilance difficult. The United States government, for example, has at least some responsibility for not only law enforcement and security but, among many other things, health, education, transportation, communications, the arts and humanities, small business development, social security, scientific research, and the mail. To serve these functions, the United States government includes not only the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court but a vast and complex set of administrative agencies, employing, as of 1997, 2,787,137 workers. The government not only sometimes seems too large to control but also too demanding of expert knowledge. Citizens find themselves in a world in which the economic well–being of millions may hinge on whether or not the Federal Reserve Board, which oversees the U.S. banking system, chooses to push interest rates down a fraction of a point. Yet most citizens are far from understanding how such decisions are and should be made. It is difficult to understand what citizen vigilance means in such a world. No wonder that, as Michael Sandel reports in Democracy’s Discontent, “Americans do not believe they have much say in how they are governed.” Liberal republicanism can hardly be blamed for modern complexities, nor can it be simply blamed for the growth of the federal government’s power. Nonetheless, liberal republicanism promised that energetic and free government was possible over an extended territory and complex society. It remains to be seen whether the development of liberal republicanism will prove this promise true.

Liberal republicanism may undermine not only political engagement in particular but also engagement in civil life more broadly. Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited America in the nineteenth century, was greatly impressed by its civil associations. Americans, he observes in Democracy in America, “use associations

. . .to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books.” In de Tocqueville’s view, modern democracy tends to isolate individuals and concentrate the whole of their attention on their private affairs, narrowly understood. Civil associations were one means by which he saw Americans pursuing common goals in common. Yet associations were not easily maintained in an individualistic age, and Tocqueville feared individuals would finally reject associations. Then, impotent alone to achieve the goals once pursued through associations, they would call on government to manage the affairs they once managed together. Government would become an “immense tutelary power” that, without formally depriving citizens of their freedoms, offers to take care of every detail of life for them and gradually reduces them to a “herd of timid and industrious animals.” Tocqueville