Political Theories for Students

a sense, they were apart in their own agrarian economy, and their failure to join the growing new one— and not the new one itself—caused part of their plight.

The most compelling and least flattering interpretation of populism is that it was and is a reactionary force that maintained a backward–looking stance by means of a conspiratorial view of history. This view has three components. First, populism could not exist on its own in power; it does not set forth distinct principles, but rather moves in opposition to other things. It does not act; it reacts. Second, populists have tended to be at the end of social and economic trends, trying to pre- serve—and, in some senses, institutionalize—ways of life that no longer apply easily to the technology and demands of the time. Perhaps the most disturbing of the components is the third: the conspiratorial view of history. To have the “us” of populism, the oppressed, requires the “them” of populism, the oppressors. “The man” always put and puts the “little guy” down. The Populist Party, or People’s Party, platform of 1892 put it this way: “A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on two continents, and it is rapidly taking possession of the world.” American agrarians believed the eastern bankers had conspired with the Washington elite to disenfranchise the farmers. Likewise, the U.S. anti–communists believed that the U.S. State Department was full of communists planning to subvert

American family values. The worst–case scenario of this kind of thinking results in xenophobia—it is the fault of foreigners—or racism, sexism, and, in the case of Germany’s Nazism, anti–Semitism. Blaming groups often leads more to hate and scapegoatism than productive strategies for growth.

Populism in Oz

The U.S. agrarian experience with populism not only changed the political landscape of the nation, but some say it also produced an enduring achievement in American literature: Frank L. Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, first published in 1900 after the peak of the agrarian populist movement, offered an entrancing children’s story that doubled as an allegory of the American populist drama. The theory was first advanced by Henry M. Littlefield in his 1964 article “The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism” from American Quarterly. More than a few historians and critics have echoed Littlefield’s findings.

The symbolism of the story centered around the key issue of the populist platform: free silver. The story of Oz—the word “Oz” itself a play on the abbreviation for ounce, the standard measure of precious metals—included the clashing images of the yellow brick road, a symbol of the gold standard on which the economy was based, and magic silver

shoes (which were changed to ruby slippers for the movie because the producers felt that color looked better against the yellow road), which spoke to the desire by populists for free coinage of silver. Just as Dorothy found the road to be restrictive, but the shoes to be the answer to her needs, populists hoped the addition of elastic and abundant silver to the economy would limit the power of bankers and help the common people to preserve—or, in Dorothy’s case, return—home.

If Dorothy served as a symbol of the United States, unknowing and innocent, held in the sway of gold without realizing the true liberating power of silver, then her companions also reflected other actors in the story of populism. The Cowardly Lion, for example, roared loudly but did little; in the same way, the great orator William Jennings Bryan made stirring speeches but failed to win the presidency despite repeated attempts. Perhaps the Tin Man represented the overworked and underpaid eastern workers, dehumanized and self–destructive regardless of how hard they worked, while the Scarecrow symbolized the Midwestern farmers facing drought and ruin, and in the Emerald City, or Washington, D.C., The Wonderful Wizard of Oz took the place of the U.S. president. Some critics see the Wicked Witches of the East and West as banker bosses and railroad barons, as well; after all, the book often returns to the theme of a people dominated and enslaved by powerful tyrants, whether they be the Munchkins trapped by the Wicked Witch of the East or the flying monkeys abused by the Wicked Witch of the West.

The Wizard of Oz became an American classic as a book, a play, and a motion picture, most notably as the 1939 Judy Garland film. At its core, however, it presented not a celebration but rather a sympathetic critique of the rise and fall of American populism. The farmer, the laborer, the politician—the U.S. public— in the novel traveled to the nation’s capital to request that their wishes be fulfilled, but each of the wishes were somehow oversimplified or self–delusional. The Scarecrow really had a brain, for he was clever and shrewd, if somewhat unpolished; likewise, the Tin Man and the Lion already had a heart and courage, respectively, even if they did not know how to capitalize on their assets. Dorothy could have returned home at any time—she, too, possessed the means to help herself throughout the novel. More important still, the U.S. President ended up to be an everyman with no special powers to remake the world with magic.

At the end of the novel, silver had lost its magic as the shoes disappeared, agricultural interests reclaimed Washington as the Scarecrow ruled the Emerald City, industrialism pushed west with the Tin Man,

and the Cowardly Lion remained a player in the woods, just as Bryan remained active though never in charge. The newly freed Munchkins and flying monkeys had to negotiate their own way in this new reality. The naïveté of the characters’ wishes gave way to the more complex reality of the changing world; the simplicity of their desires proved to be distractions rather than real reflections of their needs. In short, Baum appreciated the problems the populists raised, but found the solutions they offered to be naïve and overly elementary. The populists, he implied, often were their own worst enemies. In order to meet the challenges of a changing nation, they had to help themselves; in their doing so, Baum suggested, the movement known as agrarian populism all but disintegrated.

Of course, there are plenty of historians who may not wholeheartedly agree with Littlefield’s analyis. William R. Leach offered another interpretation of Oz—as a celebration of the American big city. There are likely plenty of readers who believe it is simply a wonderful tale of fantasy. At any rate, it does offer a different and very interesting way to study the dynamics of Populism in the late–nineteenth century.

TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY

•Investigate and compare: in what ways were nine- teenth–century Russian and American populism similar?

•Why was Eva Perón such a successful populist symbol?

•In what ways did the Populist party, or People’s party, of the nineteenth century compare to the American Independent party of the twentieth century?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sources

Cayton, Andrew, Elisabeth Israels Perry, and Allan M. Winkler. America: Pathways to the Present. Needham, Massachusetts: Prentice Hall, 1995.

Clanton, Gene. Populism: The Humane Preference in America, 1890–1900. Boston: Twayne, 1991.

Holmes, William F., ed. American Populism. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1994.

Johnston, Joseph F., Jr. “Conservative Populism: A Dead End.” National Review. (October 19, 1984): 38–42.

Kazin, Michael. The Populist Persuasion: An American History. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

Miller, David, ed. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought. Cambridge, Blackwell, 1991.

Peffer, William A. Populism, Its Rise and Fall. Peter H. Argersinger, ed. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992.

Turner, James. “Understanding the Populists,” The Journal of American History. 67:2 (September 1980): 354–373.

Viguerie, Richard A. “A Populist, and Proud Of It.” National Review. (October 19, 1984): 42–44.

Wallbank, T. Walter and Arnold Shrier. Living World History. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1990.

Further Readings

Baum, L. Frank. The Annotated Wizard of Oz: A Centennial Edition. Michael Patrick Hearn, ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000. This work explores The Wizard of Oz and helps to reveal it as an extended metaphor of the story of populism.

Goodwynn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. This book recounts the history of the farmers’ movement and its relationship to populism.

Hahn, Steven. The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Virginia Upcountry, 1850–1890. Reprint edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. This book describes the early intellectual roots of populism in the United States.

Remini, Robert Vincent. Andrew Jackson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. This biography focuses on the populist president Andrew Jackson and his influence on U.S. politics.

Taggert, Paul. Populism. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2000. This general overview provides a theoretical look at populism as an idea.

OVERVIEW

Republicanism is familiar because it pervades political speech. Americans, for example, have long pledged allegiance not only to their flag but also to “the republic for which it stands.” But republicanism is also elusive because there is no consensus among scholars or citizens as to exactly what a republic is. No wonder. Republican government has been practiced in a wide variety of times and places, including ancient Athens, Sparta, Rome, Renaissance Florence, and modern America. Similarly, republican political theory has been expounded by a wide variety of thinkers and statesmen, including Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) in ancient Greece, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469– 1527) in sixteenth–century Italy, and Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804), James Madison (1751–1836), and John Jay (1745–1829) in eighteenth–century America. Though republicanism has meant many different things, a republic can be usefully defined as a government of citizens, rather than subjects, who share in directing their own affairs. This definition, though broad, has some important implications. Being governed by a king requires little virtue; the laws, backed by the threat of force, keep subjects in check. Governing oneself, in contrast, requires considerable virtue. Where citizens themselves have a hand in the laws and in the use of force, they must remember their duties and check themselves. For this reason, republicanism requires virtue. Virtue, however, understood as the capacity and willingness to restrain or sacrifice oneself for the common good, does not come easily.

Republicanism

WHO CONTROLS GOVERNMENT? Elected officials,

majority of power in state leaders

HOW IS GOVERNMENT PUT INTO POWER? Popular vote

of the majority

WHAT ROLES DO THE PEOPLE HAVE? Vote; serve the

state in a crisis

WHO CONTROLS PRODUCTION OF GOODS? The owners

of capital

WHO CONTROLS DISTRIBUTION OF GOODS? The owners

of capital

MAJOR FIGURES Niccolò Machiavelli; John Jay

HISTORICAL EXAMPLE Ancient Sparta

CHRONOLOGY

1100–800 B.C.: The Greek polis takes shape

499–479 B.C.: Greek republics defeat monarchical Persia in the “Persian Wars”

509 B.C.: According to tradition, the year the Roman Republic is established

338 B.C.: Conquest of Greece by Philip of Macedon effectively puts an end to the independence of the Greek republics.

31 B.C.: Though the forms of republican politics remain, the rise to power of Octavian, later to be known as Augustus, effectively puts an end to the Roman Republic.

11th century A.D.: Rise of medieval town, seedbeds of republican revival, especially in Italy.

1531–1532: Publication of The Prince and Discourses, both authored by Niccolò Machiavelli, founder of modern republicanism.

1640–1660: Puritan Revolution in England.

1688: Glorious Revolution in England.

1775–1783: American Revolution.

1787–1788: Publication of the Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison in defense of the proposed Constitution of the United States, which had been adopted by the Federal Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.

Therefore, republican politics is, to borrow political theorist Michael Sandel’s phrase, a “formative politics” that uses public moral education and other means to form virtuous citizens.

HISTORY

The history of republics and republicanism begins in ancient Greece, whose very geography, featuring fertile plains separated by mountains, seemed to lend itself to small, independent, and distinctive political communities. The polis (poleis plural), as

the Greeks called the kind of community in question, began to take shape between 1100 and 800 B.C. During that period, the nobles, an exclusive group of leading families, wrested political power from the kings. Thereafter, men who acquired wealth and importance through commerce rather than noble birth demanded and gained a share of political power. In addition, military change widened the circle of citizenship. Between 700 and 600 B.C., infantry warfare began its development into the military tactic of choice in Greece. The equipment necessary for the infantry warrior, or hoplite, was much less expensive than that required for the chariot or cavalry warrior. Consequently, a broader (though still limited) section of the population came to contribute heavily to warfare and to be in a position to demand a political role. The controversy over whether citizenship and political power should belong to the multitude, as in a democracy, or the few, as in an oligarchy, often led to violence and contributed heavily to wars within and between poleis throughout classical Greek history. The controversy would continue to divide republican leaders, citizens, and theorists long after the polis had disappeared.

The polis

Many poleis had fewer than 5,000 citizens, fewer than modern-day Harvard University has undergraduates. Only three poleis had more than 20,000 citizens. Even the adult male citizen population of Athens in the late fifth century B.C., which was immense by Greek standards, did not exceed 45,000, far fewer people, for example, than the 57,545 who turn up for a sold–out New York Yankees game. The smallness of the Greek polis meant its citizens could live together with an intensity and immediacy that citizens of modern states can imagine only with difficulty. To envision life as a citizen in Athens, for example, one must envision knowing one’s fellow citizens and being known by them. One must envision participating in politics not by voting for representatives but by attending the Assembly personally and deliberating with one’s fellow citizens about the most important public matters, such as whether to go to war or sue for peace, or whether or not to punish a general. One must imagine participating in the administration of justice, not only by serving frequently on juries, which consisted not of twelve but between 101 and 1,000 citizens, but also by serving as one’s own prosecutor or defense attorney. One must imagine seeing the plays of great tragedians and comic writers not in a darkened theater with a few friends and many anonymous strangers but in the open air, as part of a public festival. Athens was by no means atypical.

Nonetheless, the tiny and consequently fragile polis, threatened with destruction by external enemies or civil war, did not exist merely to offer its citizens the opportunity to participate politically. It was a community of fighters that required extraordinary devotion and unity. Where citizens were the army, and wars frequent, communities had to be bound as soldiers are. To accomplish this task, legislators and statesmen appealed not only to the reason and interest of citizens but above all to tradition, to myths of common ancestry, and to the gods of the polis. While all the Greeks worshipped the Olympian gods such as Zeus and Hera, each polis had its own mode of worship and its own local gods. In the Greek world, patriotism was, as historian Paul Rahe put it in Republics: Ancient and Modern, “a religion of blood and soil.” The need of the polis for solidarity and a set of beliefs to support it in the face of danger helps explain why even in Athens, renowned for its liberality, Socrates (c. 470–399 B.C.), arguably the founder of Western philosophy, could be prosecuted and put to death for impiety and corrupting the young.

Aristotle

Though the all–encompassing character of polis life was borne of necessity, the Greeks also considered the polis superior to other forms of association. Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) observed in the Politics that although the polis came into being “for the sake of mere life,” it existed “for the sake of a good life.” Aristotle knew human associations could be larger than the polis. Familiar with empires, he knew such associations were not necessarily as closely knit and demanding as was the polis. He rejected associations in which people united merely for the sake of mutual defense and economic exchange. Real politics, he wrote, could not take place in such associations and human beings could not achieve perfection in them, for, according to Aristotle’s most famous claim, “man is by nature a political animal.” By this, Aristotle meant that humans uniquely can reason, speak, and deliberate together about the just and the unjust, about the good and the bad. One could be fully human and exercise the virtues proper to human beings only in the polis, in which citizens participated accordingly. Aristotle, however, also realized political drawbacks and limits and, in particular, sought to temper the harshness that made the polis often inhospitable not only to philosophers but also to prudent statesmen.

Cost to the Public

The Greek citizen’s devotion to public life came at a great cost. The Greek world depended on slave labor, which contributed significantly to the leisure

Engraving of Aristotle. (The Library of Congress)

citizens enjoyed to practice politics. In some poleis, including Athens, slaves were a large percentage of the total population. They were usually non–Greeks purchased, kidnapped, or acquired in war. Some slaves were very well educated. Some were allowed to start businesses and could hope to buy personal freedom, if not citizenship. Many were well treated, though those who worked in the mines at Athens, for example, suffered terribly. In any case, none enjoyed what was essential to a human life from the Greek stand- point—a share in the political community. That involuntary servitude existed in the heartland of republican freedom would always trouble admirers of the polis. As eighteenth century political philosopher Jean–Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) observed in The Social Contract, the demands of Greek political life seemed to entail that “the Citizen [could] be perfectly free only if the slave [was] utterly enslaved.”

In the early fifth century B.C., the Greeks, led by Athens and Sparta, won a series of stunning victories in a long war against the Persian empire. These victories were seen as confirming the superiority of political freedom to despotism. Nonetheless, it was not long before the Athenians and Spartans led separate coalitions in the destructive Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.), which pitted Greek against Greek, and led both to the defeat of Athens and to incessant political turmoil and bloodshed in Greece. In the

BIOGRAPHY:

Aristotle

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in Stagira, a town in Northern Greece. In 367 B.C., he came to Athens, then the Greek cultural center, to further his education. There, he joined the Academy of Plato and came to be a close Plato associate until the latter’s death in 347 B.C. Later, tradition has it, Aristotle was personal tutor to King Philip II of Macedon’s son Alexander, who would come to be known as Alexander the Great. In 335 B.C., he returned to Athens and founded his own school, the Lyceum. Though he enjoyed the favor of the Macedonian governor of Greece for some time, he had to flee Athens in 323 B.C. when, following the death of Alexander the Great, Athens launched a war to rid itself of Macedonian dominance. Aristotle died in exile in 322 B.C.

The Lyceum was devoted to nearly every area of knowledge, and Aristotle’s range was similarly vast. His works span biology, physics, logic, metaphysics, psychology, poetry, rhetoric, ethics, and politics. The Politics, a treatise on polis life, was his most important contribution to republican political theory. In fact, it contains the first full articulation of republican political theory. While Aristotle was hardly uncritical of the polis, it is nonetheless fair to regard him as the intellectual father of republicanism.

Despite Aristotle’s immense authority in the Middle Ages, the Politics took a very long time to gain influence. It did, however, directly influence the revival of republican thought in Renaissance Italy, and still enjoyed a wide readership in mid–18th century. Aristotle’s political influence was gradually eroded by the emergence of modern republicanism, beginning with Machiavelli, which self–consciously broke from the Aristotelian tradition. Aristotle remains, nonetheless, important to thinkers wishing to modify or supplement modern republicanism.

fourth century B.C., Greek political life was to be, as H. D. F. Kitto put it in The Greeks, “confusing, wearisome, and depressing.” In 338 B.C., Philip II of Macedon (382–336 B.C.) conquered Greece. Under his successor, Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.), the Greek

polis did not altogether disappear, but its period of great power and independence had ended.

Ancient Rome

The next significant republican model was the Roman Republic. Established around 509 B.C., it had barely begun to fulfill its imperial destiny when Greece fell to Philip. Only in 396 B.C. did Rome make its first important conquest, the neighboring polity of Veii. But by 44 B.C., thirteen years before the Republic, in effect, gave way to one–man rule, Rome’s possessions stretched from Spain to Syria. There were many similarities between Greek and Roman political institutions, and the Greek example may well have inspired republicanism in ancient Italy. But Rome, far more than any Greek polis, was a republican empire. Had the Persian wars proved that free political communities could turn back despotic aggression, the Roman Republic proved such communities could aspire to dominate the world. It also raised the question of how long a republic bent on expansion could remain republican.

Rome’s innovation was to offer full or partial citizenship to allies and defeated enemies. By doing so, it could greatly increase its resources and manpower. The meaning of republican citizenship, however, had to change. In the tiny Greek polis, citizenship could mean direct participation in political decision making. But in the Roman Republic, where a citizen might live nowhere near Rome itself, citizenship for most would be merely the possession of a certain legal status and the advantages that went with it.

One important reason for the demise of the Republic was its need for soldiers to defend its acquisitions and to conquer new ones. Toward the end of the second century B.C., Rome abandoned the practice of requiring its soldiers to own a certain minimum amount of property and to equip themselves with arms. They were thereby enabled to draw on the landless and poor, who hoped to make a living from soldiery and were consequently more willing than others to fight long campaigns far from home. At the same time, these more or less professional soldiers had little stake in the existing political order, and their hopes for land grants and bonuses rested on their general’s patronage. After this change, Rome careened from internal crisis to internal crisis, threatened by its own generals, whose troops were more loyal to them than to the political authorities. By 31 B.C., though republican forms would be retained for some time, rule had effectively fallen into the hands of one man, Octavian, soon to be known as Augustus. The Roman Republic had become the Roman Empire. For a long time after, republicans would worry that a professional military posed an unacceptable danger to freedom.

The Medieval City

More than a century passed before a republican revival began in earnest. Toward the middle of the 11th century A.D., the medieval city began to develop as trade increased. Some towns, in effect, could set up independent governments. They developed most fully in Italy, where, most notably in Florence and Venice, the medieval city was the site of not only new economic activity but also new republican politics. One can speak, as historian Peter Riesenberg does in Citizenship in the Western Tradition, of the development in Italy of a “new civic consciousness” in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and of a gradual revival of “secular patriotism.” The medieval Italian city used festivals, songs, and schools to foster in citizens the sense that the patria, the fatherland, was the highest loyalty, higher, at least at times, than their families, or even the Church. It drew on antiquity, especially the Roman Republic, for inspirational examples of the active life of self–sacrificing public service. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, as republican practice declined in Italy, republican theorizing and writing peaked in an intellectual, literary, and political movement, centered in Florence, that has come to be called civic humanism. Civic humanist writers drew on ancient history and political theory to defend republicanism. At the same time, for at least two reasons, the medieval city could hardly be regarded as a full–fledged revival of the old republican idea.

First, medieval Italian city life was emphatically commercial. The exercise of political rights, whatever moral value, had to be weighed against the cost, in time away from doing business, of attending public assemblies, or serving in office. The merchants and artisans who populated the cities were typically more concerned with the commercial benefits and protections of citizenship than with decidedly less tangible pleasures Aristotle promised to political participants. Eventually, citizenship itself became more associated with material benefits.

Christianity

Second, and more importantly, the medieval world was Christian, which meant it could not easily accept the republican ideal in good conscience. The medieval citizen was expected to be loyal first to his city, but the medieval Christian wanted to be loyal first to God. The medieval citizen was expected to embrace the active life, but the medieval Christian was expected to embrace, at least in part, the ideal of contemplation, prayer, and withdrawal from world affairs. The medieval citizen was expected to regard his fellow citizens as friends and the citizens of rival cities as strangers or enemies, but the medieval Christian

was expected to regard all men as brothers. Thus, the would–be devoted republican citizen was tempted “from below” by the ideal of the merchant and “from above” by the ideal of the monk.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) made the implicit opposition between Christianity and republicanism explicit and sided with the latter. In his view, Christianity, with its emphasis on submission, resignation, humility, and mercy, had softened men and turned their attention from worldly politics. Political leaders were fanatics and fools. By aiming for excessively high–minded virtues, Christianity had distracted human beings from seizing what they could reasonably expect to have: security, prosperity, and perhaps even lasting glory. In his Discourses, Machiavelli sings the praises of the expansionist Roman republic and, while criticizing it, suggests it did not go far enough in its single–minded and heartless devotion to acquisition and glory. In a way, Machiavelli treats ancient republicanism in the opposite of Aristotle, for while Aristotle seeks to soften that republicanism and make room for philosophy, Machiavelli seeks to harden it and subordinate peaceful virtues to the pursuit of victory. Machiavelli, the first to articulate a modern republicanism that decisively broke from Christian and classical models, was to have many followers.

That is not to say, however, that republicanism is simply anti–Christian. In Florence, not long before Machiavelli wrote, Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) had briefly attempted to turn Florence into a Christian republic. Prophets had long invested events in earthly cities with divine significance. Savonarola merely added to that tradition in understanding the restoration of Florentine republicanism, which had lapsed, as a spiritual renewal and in understanding the city of Florence as destined to purify Christianity and prepare the way for the city of God. Republicanism, which rejected human kingship, could be understood to assert that Christ alone was king. Savonarola’s project failed, and he was hanged and burned as a heretic. But religious thinkers and believers, especially Protestants, would be pivotal to republicanism, above all in the establishment of republican government in England and America. Republicans in those countries would have to confront the problem that by the middle of the sixteenth century had all but destroyed republican life in Europe, the seeming helplessness of small republics in the face of large, centralized, monarchical states.

Revival

For the moment, however, republicanism had settled down for one of its long sleeps. While the Netherlands and Switzerland were exceptions, the rule in the

sixteenth and much of the seventeenth century was the consolidation of monarchical power, which centralized bureaucracies supported and professional standing armies defended. Only in seventeenth–century England did republicanism decisively awaken in the Puritan Revolution (1640–1660) and the Glorious Revolution (1688), which ended with the vindication of the sovereignty of Parliament, the most representative and democratic part of the English government, and the reduction of the king’s power. Almost a century later, England’s American colonies, persuaded that the mother country had abandoned republican principles, fought and won the American Revolution (1775–83). In the debate over the Constitution of 1787, both the Federalists, who defended it, and the Anti–Federalists, who attacked it, looked mostly to the same standard. As the Federalist Papers, the most celebrated defense of the American Constitution, insist, the “general form and aspect of the government [must] be strictly republican,” for “no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America” or “with the fundamental principles of the Revolution.” Yet by republicanism, the authors of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804), James Madison, and John Jay did not mean what the Romans, or even the Florentines, meant. Though they chose the pseudonym Publius, the name of a Roman Republic hero, to underscore their allegiance to the republican tradition, they also called the new Constitution an “experiment” and warned their readers against a “blind veneration for antiquity.”

The new republicanism, conceived in England but brought to term in the United States, contained elements of the old, but added to them a powerful political theory, liberalism, contained in the writings of, among others, John Locke (1632–1704) and the Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755). Liberal republicanism follows Machiavelli in seeking to found politics not on high–minded virtues, but on more solid ground. For the liberal, the end of politics is not the promotion of virtue but the protection of rights. Virtue remains necessary, but human reason is capable of devising a new political science and new institutions that will narrow the gap between self–interest and the common good, so that the importance of virtue and the harshness of the virtue required for political success are both diminished.

While the statesman is by no means disparaged, liberals do not see the political life as the only full human life, nor do they view the public square as the primary theater of virtue. Industry, commerce, and the “pursuit of happiness” acquire a new respectability, made possible partly by less of a need of the modern liberal for the extreme self–sacrificing virtue de-

manded in the ancient polis. Also, the smallness conducive to intense patriotism and direct public participation was not required by the new liberal republicanism, which enabled the large territorial republic to enter the world stage for the first time and ultimately to compete with the great monarchical states. Nonetheless, the large republic had its controversies in the United States, and the Anti–Federalists doubted that even the limited virtues required to sustain the new republic could be maintained in a nation as large as the United States, governed by a powerful and always potentially tyrannical central government. The Anti–Federalists lost, but their doubts carried to future republican generations.

Rousseau was arguably the greatest critic of the new liberal republicanism. In his works, including the

Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men and the Social Contract, he attacked the emerging modern world and the theorists who helped coax it into being for, among other things, destroying virtue, promoting inequality, and falling far short of democracy. He compared the emerging modern, civilized man unfavorably to Spartans and Romans, on the one hand, and primitives and rustics on the other. While Rousseau himself had almost no hope for radical reform, his thought helped inspire demands to modify or abandon the liberal republican model, which were heard in, among many other places, the more radical French and Russian revolutions that came after the American one. Although liberal republicanism of a sort would come to dominate the world by the end of the twentieth century, it would never altogether escape criticism, nor did it altogether avoid giving in to at least some demands.

THEORY IN DEPTH

The Essentials of Republicanism

The political theory of republicanism holds that the best government involves citizens, rather than subjects, where citizens share in directing their own affairs. It was first developed and expounded in ancient Greece, most completely by Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) in his work, the Politics. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469– 1527), who criticized and self–consciously broke with the old republican tradition, founded a new, modern republicanism. This new republicanism, modified and made more receptive to individual freedom by Machiavelli’s successors, found enduring expression in the Federalist Papers. Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804), John Jay (1745–1829), and James Madison (1751– 1836) wrote this collection of essays in 1787–1788 to

defend the proposed Constitution of the United States. Modern republicanism has pervaded the United States and Western Europe, and is influential worldwide. While ancient, or classical, and modern, or liberal, republicanism differ in most respects, they share the conviction of self–government as the only worthwhile political arrangement.

Classical Republicanism

The Greek polis gave birth to republicanism, and Aristotle first fully articulated a republican political theory. Republicanism, however, was so profoundly transformed by Niccolò Machiavelli and the successors, such as John Locke and Baron de Montesquieu, who tamed his harsh teaching, that it is useful to distinguish between classical and liberal republicanism.

Classical republicanism starts from the premise that man is by nature a political animal. Human nature finds its fulfillment only in polis life, in which citizens deliberate about justice and the common good and rule themselves on the basis of such deliberation. Polis life, however, is extremely fragile. The polis must be small enough that citizens can assemble together, but must somehow defend itself against larger neighbors. Moreover, the polis may often be agitated for, as the Federalist Papers state, when matters of great national importance are discussed, a “torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose.” In the polis, such matters, which affect vital interests and deep beliefs, are debated openly and often, and constantly threaten to tear it apart. Finally, the polis imposes unusual demands and responsibility on its citizens, who are expected to rule themselves by participating. For all these reasons, cultivating solidarity and a self–sacrificing virtue is among the first concerns of classical republican political theory.

Private life Because it puts politics first, and because it asks so much of its citizens, classical republicanism tends to devalue private life. Indeed, the word “idiot” derives from a term the Greeks applied to a person who preferred private to public life. For the classical republican, politics is not a necessary evil one suffers in order to protect and advance private interests. On the contrary, private interest and even individual freedom are subordinate to the public interest and to the political freedom citizens can exercise only in common. The polis, Aristotle wrote, “is prior to the individual.” The classical republican likes to devalue privacy because public engagement really is, for most humans, superior to any private pursuit. The classical republican frowns upon privacy because, as political theorist and Michigan State University professor Steven Kautz said in Liberalism and Community, “re-

publican virtue does not arise spontaneously in the souls of human beings” but “must be forced into being by a political community that restrains the private interests and appetites of individuals,” which threaten to undermine devotion to the polis. For both these reasons, as Paul Rahe pointed out, the Greek may have had certain legal privileges as a citizen, but “as a human being, [he] possessed no rights against the commonwealth.” Classical republicans see individuals not endowed by nature or God with rights beyond community reach. Moreover, the devaluing of private life extended to the family, as the following famous tale suggests. A Spartan mother had five sons in the army, which was engaged in battle. A slave arrived, and she asked him for news of the fight. He told her that her five sons had been killed. She responded, “Did I ask you that?” When he told her the Spartans had won the battle, she ran to the temple to give thanks to the gods.

Classical republicanism, for several reasons, also tends to devalue commerce and trade. First, politics, for the classical republican, is simply a noble pursuit. Man is a political, not an economic animal. What Aristotle calls the art of acquisition is necessary, for the polis cannot exist without material goods, nor can the citizen have the leisure to participate public affairs without a certain amount of wealth. But to devote oneself wholeheartedly to this art is to mistake the means for the end. Partly for this reason the Greeks tended to frown upon those engaged in commercial pursuits, even in poleis where commerce was viewed as necessary.

Commerce Second, commerce produces inequalities, as some accumulate wealth and others fail. The classical republican, however, does not worry about economic inequality, because it is unfair. Rather, he worries that extreme economic inequality may have dire political consequences. Economic inequality threatens solidarity and, when extreme, results in a city divided along the lines of wealth. How will citizens see themselves as one people when one group prospers greatly while the other suffers greatly? One is almost certain to find instead, as Aristotle observed, “a state of envy on the one side and of contempt on the other,” not one united city but, in all but name, two enemy cities sharing space. Economic inequality is also dangerous because the poor depend upon the rich, who can use their economic advantage to secure unchallenged political supremacy. Finally, as long as politics is a struggle between rich and poor, one has neither a genuinely political life—for one group exercises tyrannical authority over the other—nor stability, because there is always a group with everything to gain by toppling the status quo. Ancient theorists