Keeping The Republic
In our modern age where everything is filmed, or streamed, or at the very least closely monitored by reporters it is hard to imagine the most consequential political debates taking place in private. Yet this was exactly how the constitutional convention was conducted. For five months the country’s greatest statesmen and intellectuals sat cloistered away in Independence Hall, crafting a new constitution for our freshly birthed nation. On the last day, as the convention was breaking apart, a collection of concerned citizens gathered outside the door. Amongst the throng was an older woman who boldly asked the convention’s eldest delegate, Benjamin Franklin, what sort of constitution they just finished writing. He replied with a warning: A republic if you can keep it.
It is common for the historically inclined to quibble when others call the United States a democracy. This is an understandable impulse. For such people, intentionally or not, have taken Dr. Franklin’s challenge to heart. However, we rarely understand the difference between these two regimes and the history of those terms in the United States. In so doing we miss the larger truth of modern America – we stopped being a republic quite some time ago.
Defining The Terms
Despite the prevalence of contradictory and competing definitions of democracy in the modern day, the meaning of the term has been fairly stable throughout history until recently. Democracy simply means the rule of the majority, and a democratic government is one that can best reflect the wishes of the greatest number of citizens. The heart of a democratic society – for regimes are defined not just by their politics but also by their culture – is the idea of equality. A society in which there is little or no social hierarchy and everyone is treated roughly the same.
Contrasting with this, the aim of a republican regime is to create harmony – both political and social – by cultivating a consensus between classes and individuals. A republican society aims for a culture in which humans live harmoniously. Each fulfilling his chosen role and deferring to those who are chosen to lead. In the age of Greece and Rome, the path to the republican regime was thought to be through nurturing virtue among the citizens of the republic. As the English poet Thomas Addison once put it: “A Roman soul is bent on higher views: To civilize the rude, unpolished world … To make man mild, and sociable to man; To cultivate the wild, licentious savage with wisdom, discipline, and liberal arts.”
It should be noted that these definitions depart rather significantly from those offered by James Madison in The Federalist Papers. There Madison defines a republic as a regime whose foundation rests with the people, but which avoids the pitfalls of direct democracy. There can be no denying that Madison’s definition has much truth to it. After all, since Aristotle it has been widely acknowledged that a republic - in order to maintain harmony - must derive much of its power from the popular will. However, what truly distinguishes a republic from a democracy is not its method (as Madison seems to imply) but its aim.
Republicanism in America
The collapse of the Roman Republic and the brutal governments that followed in its wake seemed to quash this very possibility. Which is why the American founders – like most modern republicans – rejected the classical emphasis on virtue as the foundation for a republican government. Their solution instead was a more institutional one. Assuming that men are not angels, and never will be, they set out to create a structure of government that would prevent the selfish human passions from ever dominating the regime. They intended not to create an inspiring arrangement but rather a practical one. The founders sought not to end selfishness but deploy and restrain it.
This is most obvious in the arrangement of our federal institutions. The American system is designed to channel vicious passion through the general structure of its government. Each of the three branches of government is engineered to compete with the others for power, which explains why the branches so often share powers with one another in ways that encourage political clashes. Further, there is a more human element to the system of checks and balances. Madison frankly states in Federalist 51 that one of the best ways to ensure that each branch keeps its fellows in check is not just through power sharing but also through the “personal motives” of the officeholders using ambition to counteract ambition. The framers knew that each officeholder would have a personal stake in the success of his branch, and this would ensure that the branches maintained a healthy level of political competition.
Despite this carefully planned institutional structure, things began to go downhill rather quickly. In true republican fashion, the founders organized the regime to try and restrain majority tyranny. But almost from the moment of ratification the American people tired of being lectured about democratic despotism by the wealthy and educated political classes. Some thinkers, such as John Quincy Adams, witnessed this dangerous trend and insisted the republican order needed to stimulate selfless virtue amongst the populace through strong moral education. He argued that no republic – perhaps no regime – could survive without some effort to inspire humans to rise above their own selfishness.
The Rise of Democracy in America
In the end, Adams proved unable to stem the tide. Beginning with the triumph of Andrew Jackson in the election of 1828 America began its ongoing transition to such a regime. Jackson spoke for the American people when he declared that “democracy shows not only its power in reforming governments but in regenerating a race of men and this is the greatest blessing of free government.”
So if we are honest with ourselves, we have not kept the republic as Dr Franklin hoped we might. Americans now see our institutions not as a means to create consensus but instead as a path to enacting the wishes of the greatest number of voters. Any institution that stands in the way of the majority is now threatened. Almost all state and local officials, from the soil inspector to the judges, are elected. Senators and party nominees are likewise chosen by popular vote. Those republican institutions which remain are constantly criticized. Calls for the abolition of the electoral college have been unceasing since Jackson himself first proposed the idea, and in recent years the Senate has even come under fire.
It seems unlikely though that America could ever return to its more republican past. None of this is meant to imply that we should find cause for serious despair in our newly democratic nation. For all the issues with democratic institutions, the democratic society which created them has a lot going for it. The French political thinker Alexis De Tocqueville eloquently shows the way in which democracy can lead to greater human flourishing than hierarchical republican societies. He argues that this is because the equality endemic to a democratic society allows humans to encounter one another without the harsh filter of conventions and firm social regulations. In this way, we can learn to appreciate one another as we really are, thus making possible a more intimate and genuine loving foundation for civil society. As Tocqueville says: “Democracy which destroys or obscures almost all the old social conventions and prevents men from readily fastening on new ones, makes most of the sentiments that arise from these conventions disappear entirely. But it only modified others, and often gives them an energy and sweetness they did not otherwise possess.”
A Virtuous Democracy
Of course, Tocqueville did not think this vision of democratic society was automatic. It required not just equality but freedom. This is what sets a liberal democracy apart from a democracy simply - the concern for human liberty. For Tocqueville freedom had a unique meaning. It was neither aristocratic privilege nor a lack of external restraint upon the individual but instead the ability to govern oneself. By this, he did not just mean politically, but also the ability to control our own passions and achieve great things. In short, for Tocqueville freedom and democracy require virtue.
Here we can look to the insights of John Quincy Adams. America is now more or less a democracy. But to ensure that it is a democracy worth living in requires that it maintain republican elements. This of course means protecting republican institutions, but perhaps more important is encouraging republican virtue. Which is itself a trickier business. As much as we may wish, the law can only do so much to cultivate human virtue. John Quincy Adams often liked to quote his hero Cicero to argue that virtue is only genuine if it is freely learned and maintained. Thus from a policy perspective, we cannot mandate goodness but we can work to create the conditions in which virtue might flourish.
First, we must ensure widespread liberal arts education. No education is complete without a serious study of history, literature, mathematics, science, philosophy, or religion. All these subjects in their own way, and when taught correctly, instruct students in the permanent things. The things which have been true in all ages and upon which mankind can build a solid moral outlook.
Second, we must guard against ardent secularity. I do not mean to imply here that we should have a state religion or that religion itself should play a much greater role in the shaping of public policy than it already does. What I mean is that there are moves in the social sphere to banish religion very carefully from any public space and these must be discouraged. Whether we are believers or not, religion can provide a strong foundation for local communities and republican virtue. So we should encourage religious charter schools, advocate for school prayer in our public schools, and ensure that people are allowed to live according to their religious convictions as much as possible.
Third, we must address the problem of poverty. Studies show that poverty is the most likely factor in the collapse of the family. 60% of upper-income families are two-parent homes. That number is only 20% among lower-income families. Too often crippling poverty leads to a collapse of virtue and inevitably separates the poor from the civic life of the nation. This sad fact is of course not the fault of the poor themselves, but rather a sad outgrowth of the state of dependency that often accompanies poverty. As the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said of dependency: “It is an incomplete state in life: normal in the child, abnormal in the adult. In a world where completed men and women stand on their own feet, persons who are dependent - as the buried imagery of the word denotes - hang.”
Fourth, we must revive our local communities. Culture and human flourishing cannot be truly sustained at the national and international levels. Human beings live in a community and it is here that their passions are most likely to be directed and encouraged. The problem with national conservatism and internationalist liberalism is that both seek to undo such communities in favor of a constructed inorganic community. We must encourage the “little platoons” that compose our society to create a thriving democracy.
Setting aside these more political recommendations, perhaps the greatest way we can revive republican virtue has nothing to do with politics, but instead with our private lives. For virtue is better encouraged and cultivated in the private sphere and here we can all play a part. Be active in your community, work to improve the lives of those around you, and perhaps most importantly seek to be virtuous yourself. Work diligently and constantly to be as selfless as possible. Banish resentment and political anger from your disposition. In short, we must work day, and night to build a more virtuous core to our democratic society. Through education, religion, and culture we must inspire the American people and ourselves to rise above the all-consuming passion for ourselves. To infuse our democratic society with republican virtue, and live up, even if just a little, to the challenge Benjamin Franklin gave us so many Septembers ago.
A version of this essay was originally delivered as part of the Boyce-Haller First Principles lecture series at the Heritage Foundation. 