What is the best form of government, sir? "A republic, if you can keep it." -- Benjamin Franklin, Constitution Convention, 17 September 1787
The U.S. Founding Fathers modeled our Constitution heavily on the old Roman Republic. The Republic preceded the Empire (the downfall of which a lot of Modern thinkers want to use as a comparison to our times).
The Republic lasted from 506 BC to 27 BC, whereas the Empire went from 27 BC to "kind of" 476 AD. (I say "kind of" because the first Germanic invasion didn't completely collapse the Roman system. The invading Germans wanted to live as Romans. It wasn't until a few invasions later, after the Lombard invasion of 568, that an invading Germanic people began dismantling the Roman system.)
Let's do the math on this. The Roman Republic lasted 479 years. Not a bad run for the first attempt at a democratic republic. (Some Greek city-states had run smaller direct democracies for a while, but they didn't have the same lasting power.)
The Empire lasted variously 503 years, if counting to the first invasion, or up to about 600 years, if counting up until the Lombard dismantling of legal and structural systems. Although the Empire lasted longer, it was a stinking, rotting corpse near the end, and, in fact, through other portions of its existence. (There was a half-hearted attempt after Emperor Caligula to return to a republic, but it didn't amount to much.) The Empire was propped up by slavery and, for a while, by constant absorption of new lands through conquest. It was kind of a weird "pyramid system", relying on conquest (rather than drawing on creating new investors to prop up old ones, as do investment pyramid schemes)-- the needs in newly conquered territories would eventually be propped up, in some ways, by what was conquered after that.
The Pax Romana created a system of relative peace and travel that allowed Christianity to take hold (accounting for the human rather than divine factors). Off and on over time, some scholars have blamed these very Christians for the downfall of the Empire. The reasons are too complicated to blame Christians. Its time had come, like those banks that are propped up too long and called "too big to fail." (I will agree that Emperor Theodosius [r. 379-395 AD], the one who made Christianity the official religion of the Empire, was a factor in the Empire falling. He was a lousy emperor at several levels. His time also saw Christians turning around and persecuting pagans.) I think it's too much of a "parlor game" trying to find parallel causes of the Empire falling and what's happening in modern American society. Since we were based on the Republic, that's where we need to go for answers.
The Roman Republic destroyed itself, largely, by letting itself fall into the traps of a two-party political system. The parties didn't line up exactly along the lines that ours do, but there are some parallels. Overall, the take-away is that such a system creates a tug-of-war. It also leads to easier corruption because it's easier to pick a side and practice bribery to get power. With multiple parties and multiple thought streams accounted for, it's a little harder to do this. Contrary to how "originalists" operate now days, the Roman Republic was willing to adapt itself to keep functioning. They got nearly 500 years out of their system. We have insanity brewing, and we haven't even made it to 250 years.
The Roman historian Sallust (~85-35 BC) suggested the conquests were a factor in the Republic's downfall. The influx of money from newly conquered territories was a factor. "Strongmen" arose, lusting for money and for power. Violence began to replace voting.
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| Cicero Denounces Cataline --Cesare Maccari, 1889 |
Our Founding Fathers were pretty smart men, overall. (As an aside, I disagree theologically with many of them because, counter to what some of my fellow believers say, they were not all Christian. A lot of the prominent thinkers were Deists or proto-Unitarians, meaning they didn't believe in a Trinity. But they were, seemingly, a pretty intelligent bunch.) These men were trying to create a stronger system to replace the loose Articles of Confederation from right after the Revolutionary War. That weak, decentralized system left our new nation very vulnerable in several aspects, including militarily and economically.
The Fathers were cautious and wanted a sensible balance between centralized powers, the rights of states and the rights of individuals (at least White landowning men). They looked to the Republic. Strangely, they did not take into enough account how partisanship had brought down the Republic.
They also did not take into account the politics in Great Britain at the time, which was already a constitutional monarchy with a sitting Parliament. (The words directed at George III in the Declaration of Independence should more properly have been directed at Parliament.) England had long used a "first-past-the-post" system, meaning the person who got the most votes (even if it were a "plurality" and not a "majority") won the race. England was also developing tug-of-wars between Tories and Whigs at that time. The UK is moving away two-party system itself.
George Washington's exit speech when ending his presidency (see elsewhere in this blog, under the "politics" or "moderation" labels) warned strongly against developing a two-party system. He warned it would have people at each other's throats. He warned that it left the door open to foreign intervention in our political system, notably through bribery.
So why couldn't the Fathers have taken some additional steps to address elections and parties in the Constitution? Some say there is no way to address this in such a document. Yes, there were several ways. They could have pondered harder since they were intelligent and dedicated to the survival of our republic. They could have mandated that political parties not be private entities. They could have stipulated that, if parties were to form, there would be no less than three and no more than five at any one time. If they had thought hard enough, they could have considered the option of required run-offs, as opposed to the first-past-the-post system. After all, with the electoral college system, there were times that run-offs happened in the House of Representatives to choose the President in the early days.
Hopefully our republic can course correct in ways the Roman Republic did not.
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.jpg "Bismark Caricatures")
