November 26, 2017
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
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Benjamin Franklin
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© David E. Moore
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Our eyes are automatically drawn to the Acropolis and the Parthenon, symbols of classical Greek civilization and achievement. But take a moment and focus on the foreground of the picture above. This is the Parthenon seen from the Pnyx, a hill a little over half a mile south of the Acropolis. At 350 feet it is not particularly prominent. But this is the site that should be enshrined in your popular democratic imagination. It is here in 507 BCE that the Ekklesia, the democratic assembly of Athens began meeting. If there is a birthplace for all that we cherish in our democratic tradition, it is this spot.
Visiting on a warm April morning I imagined the crowds of citizens, as many as 6000, listening to Pericles rally his fellow Athenians after defeat in the first year of the Peloponnesian War, the exhortations of Alcibiades to attack Syracuse during a lull in that same war, Demosthenes Philippics urging preparedness against the Macedonian threat. Here, each citizen, equal under the law, had the right to speak. But more important was the principle of isopoliteía [ἰσοπολιτεία] the equal right to vote and hold public office. This core democratic principle is its most fragile element. Its practice rests on a level of competency and selfless disinterest that will produce decisions that best serve the interest of the polis. This assumption was harshly critiqued from its very inception. Plato, Aristotle and Thucydides among others wrote extensively on the underlying weakness of democratic decision making. Examination of the decisions of the Ekklesia over time more than bear out their concern. One notorious example will suffice. In 415 the Ekklesia, agreeing with the arguments of Alcibiades, voted to attack Syracuse. The assembly appointed both Alcibiades and the leading opponent of the plan, Nicias, to lead the expedition together with Lamachus. Within months of this decision the Ekklesia then voted to arrest Alcibiades on the charge of sacrilege and escort him back to Athens for trial leaving the "peace" candidate leading the expedition. It all ended in catastrophe with 7000 Athenians ending their days as slaves in the stone quarries of Syracuse. Alcibiades escaped and took up residence in Sparta, now at war with Athens.
Democratically determined policies, declarations of war, and ostracisms often resulted in existential crises. Ultimately this ended in the devolution of democracy into tyranny following defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE. A brief revival of democracy would finally end with the arrival of Philip II of Macedon in 338 as hegemon of Greece.
Well grounded in the Greek and Latin classics, these lessons were not lost on our Founding Fathers. Athenian democracy was direct democracy and something to be avoided.
Visiting on a warm April morning I imagined the crowds of citizens, as many as 6000, listening to Pericles rally his fellow Athenians after defeat in the first year of the Peloponnesian War, the exhortations of Alcibiades to attack Syracuse during a lull in that same war, Demosthenes Philippics urging preparedness against the Macedonian threat. Here, each citizen, equal under the law, had the right to speak. But more important was the principle of isopoliteía [ἰσοπολιτεία] the equal right to vote and hold public office. This core democratic principle is its most fragile element. Its practice rests on a level of competency and selfless disinterest that will produce decisions that best serve the interest of the polis. This assumption was harshly critiqued from its very inception. Plato, Aristotle and Thucydides among others wrote extensively on the underlying weakness of democratic decision making. Examination of the decisions of the Ekklesia over time more than bear out their concern. One notorious example will suffice. In 415 the Ekklesia, agreeing with the arguments of Alcibiades, voted to attack Syracuse. The assembly appointed both Alcibiades and the leading opponent of the plan, Nicias, to lead the expedition together with Lamachus. Within months of this decision the Ekklesia then voted to arrest Alcibiades on the charge of sacrilege and escort him back to Athens for trial leaving the "peace" candidate leading the expedition. It all ended in catastrophe with 7000 Athenians ending their days as slaves in the stone quarries of Syracuse. Alcibiades escaped and took up residence in Sparta, now at war with Athens.
Democratically determined policies, declarations of war, and ostracisms often resulted in existential crises. Ultimately this ended in the devolution of democracy into tyranny following defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE. A brief revival of democracy would finally end with the arrival of Philip II of Macedon in 338 as hegemon of Greece.
Well grounded in the Greek and Latin classics, these lessons were not lost on our Founding Fathers. Athenian democracy was direct democracy and something to be avoided.
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"Let it stand as a principle that government originates from the people; but let the people be taught...that they are not able to govern themselves."
Jeremy Belknap, New England clergyman, 1744-1798 "The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right." Alexander Hamilton, Debates of the Federal Convention 1787 |
Skeptical of human nature and the ability of civic virtue to rise above the selfish interests of the individual, the founders designed institutional safeguards to keep the people well removed from the levers of power and to make the exercise of power a frustratingly difficult exercise. Schooled in the philosophes of the Age of Reason, they designed an intricate mechanical clockwork which divided power and instituted checks and balances upon its operation. This was the Newtonian universe translated into a republican form of government at the Convention in Philadelphia.
It was only a very short time before this "clockwork" began to malfunction. The first assault consisted of a major change in the manner of choosing electors in presidential elections. As articulated by Hamilton, the original design was premised upon the selection of a president "made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station [of president]." Rather than detailing a method for choosing electors, the Constitution left this to the discretion of the individual states, which would choose them “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct “(U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 1). Initially it was state legislatures which choose these individuals. As voters in districts began to enter the process they were still not electing a president. They were selecting individuals who would use their better judgement, experience and discretion to choose an individual most qualified to hold this position. But the rise of party factionalism, both deplored by the Founding Fathers and yet aided and abetted by them, resulted in most states by 1836 devising a system putting forward tickets of electors pledged to a specific candidate. Thus popular sovereignty gained control over the one federal position the Founding Fathers most wanted to protect from the quixotic factionalism of the people, who in their minds represented the potential for tyranny, and the loss of the very liberties the Republic was designed to safeguard.
Throughout the 19th and into the 20th century this gradual transformation was extended further with the direct election of Senators, the elimination of property qualifications for voting, and the enactment of the initiative petition and recall mechanism in many state constitutions. Concomitantly, the development of political parties and the factionalism they entailed continued unabated. The net result of this political evolution in the present moment is a condition of political stasis and stalemate. In Federalist No. 10, James Madison envisioned a means to avoid this outcome by the creation of a republic whose "sphere" was so extensive that it would encompass too many competing factions, none of which could reach a critical mass and endanger the liberty of others.
It was only a very short time before this "clockwork" began to malfunction. The first assault consisted of a major change in the manner of choosing electors in presidential elections. As articulated by Hamilton, the original design was premised upon the selection of a president "made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station [of president]." Rather than detailing a method for choosing electors, the Constitution left this to the discretion of the individual states, which would choose them “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct “(U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 1). Initially it was state legislatures which choose these individuals. As voters in districts began to enter the process they were still not electing a president. They were selecting individuals who would use their better judgement, experience and discretion to choose an individual most qualified to hold this position. But the rise of party factionalism, both deplored by the Founding Fathers and yet aided and abetted by them, resulted in most states by 1836 devising a system putting forward tickets of electors pledged to a specific candidate. Thus popular sovereignty gained control over the one federal position the Founding Fathers most wanted to protect from the quixotic factionalism of the people, who in their minds represented the potential for tyranny, and the loss of the very liberties the Republic was designed to safeguard.
Throughout the 19th and into the 20th century this gradual transformation was extended further with the direct election of Senators, the elimination of property qualifications for voting, and the enactment of the initiative petition and recall mechanism in many state constitutions. Concomitantly, the development of political parties and the factionalism they entailed continued unabated. The net result of this political evolution in the present moment is a condition of political stasis and stalemate. In Federalist No. 10, James Madison envisioned a means to avoid this outcome by the creation of a republic whose "sphere" was so extensive that it would encompass too many competing factions, none of which could reach a critical mass and endanger the liberty of others.
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"Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. . . ."
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Madison also envisioned a class of political leadership chosen by these competing factions which would filter and refine the often ill considered passions of their constituents.
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[One effect of government by representatives is] " . . .to refine and enlarge the public views,by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations."
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Granting the 20-20 nature of hindsight, it is clear that Madison's optimism was naive at best. We are now enduring the presidency of an individual who is the least capable and qualified individual ever to hold the office. Both temperamentally and intellectually Donald Trump lacks the maturity to bring to the presidency the judgement required to navigate the shoals of domestic and foreign policy not to mention the currents of the political process itself. Not only have the mechanisms the Founding Fathers instituted to forestall such an event failed, even more so, the faith placed in the "wisdom" of the political class to hold the well being of the nation above "temporary or partial considerations" has been demonstrated to be a colossal misjudgment.
The foundational civic norms of the Republic have been lost in an unmitigated devotion to the perpetuation of factional dominance at the expense of the well being of the constituents the political class supposedly serve. As intra-party factionalism increases party leadership becomes engaged in a continuous struggle to satisfy all points of view without alienating significant minority groups and donors. The result is an incoherent ideology, if one can even use that term. Thus we come to the present circumstance wherein the Republican Party has made its Faustian bargain. It will overlook and ignore, evade and excuse any and all of Trump's ill considered policies, actions, and appointments in the name of achieving its agenda. The cost to the nation is potentially catastrophic.
We are at an inflection point. Either the faith our Founding Fathers placed in our ability to surmount narrow self interest in favor of promoting the "general welfare" will experience a renaissance, or like republics before us we will experience a slow devolution into an oligarchy of the privileged few who control the actual levers of power through their funding of a complacent political class. There are signs that this renaissance may in fact have begun. The Women's March of January 21, 2017 initiated a political re-engagement of individuals who abandoned their observer status for that of participant in the political process at the grass roots level. The results of the November elections clearly demonstrated the potential power of this diffuse movement. It remains to be seen both how sustainable and effective it will be. There is an opportunity here to restore our place in the world where we, in the words of Pericles "...are the models, not the imitators, of others. Because we are governed for the many and not for the few, we go by the name of a democracy."
