American Republicanism: Roman Ideology in the United States Constitution PDF
Preview American Republicanism: Roman Ideology in the United States Constitution
AMERICAN REPUBLICANISM Studies in Modern History General Editor: J. C. D. Clark, FellowofAll Souls College, Oxford Editorial Board T. H.Breen, William Smith Mason Professor ofHistory, Northwestern University Francois Furet, Professor ofHistory, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en SciencesSociales, Paris PeterLaslett, FellowofTrinity College,Cambridge Geoffrey Parker, ProfessorofHistory, Yale University J. G.A. Pocock, ProfessorofHistory,Johns Hopkins University HagenSchulze, Professor ofHistory, Universitatder Bundeswehr, MUnchen Norman Stone,Professor ofModern History, UniversityofOxford Gordon Wood, ProfessorofHistory, Brown University The recent proliferation of controversy in many areas of modern history has had commoncauses.Therevisionofassumptionsandorthodoxies,alwaysprofessedasthe role of scholarship in each generation but seldom really attempted, has increasingly becomeareality. Historianspreviouslyunusedto debatingtheirmajorpremiseshave beenconfrontedbyfundamentalchallengesto theirsubjects- the reconceptualization offamiliarissues and the revision ofacceptedchronological,geographicalandcultural frameworks have characterized much of the best recent research. Increasingly, too, areas of scholarship have passed through this phase of conflict and recasting, and worksofsynthesisarenowemerginginidioms whichincorporatenew perspectiveson old areas of study.Thisseriesisdesigned to accommodate,encourage and promote bookswhich embodythe latestthinkinginthisidiom.Theseriesaims to publishbold, innovativestatementsinBritish,Europeanand Americanhistorysincethe Reformation anditwillpay particularattentionto thewritingsand insightsofyoungerscholarson bothsidesofthe Atlantic. PuBLISHEDTITLES: DoronBen-Atar,THEORIGINSOFJEFFERSONIAN COMMERCIALPOUCY AND DIPLOMACY Conal Condren,THELANGUAGEOFPotrncs IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND CadocLeighton,CAlHOUClSMINAPROTESTANTKINGDOM:A Studyofthe Irish Ancien Regime Cecilia Miller, GIAMBATIlSTA VICO: Imagination and Historical Knowledge Marjorie Morgan: MANNERS, MORALS AND CLAss IN ENGLAND, 1774-1858 Dermot Quinn, PATRONAGE AND PIETY:The Politics of English Roman Catholicism, 1850-1900 M. N. S. Sellers, AMERICAN REPUBUCANISM: Roman Ideology in the United States Constitution Jim Smyth,THEMEN OF No PROPERTY: Irish Radicals and Popular Politics in Late Eighteenth-Century England American Republicanism Roman Ideology in the United States Constitution M. N. S. Sellers AssistantProfessorofLaw UniversityofBaltimoreSchoolofLaw M MACMILLAN © M. N.S.SelJers 1994 Softcoverreprintofthehardcover 1stedition1994 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copy ortransmissionof this publicationmay bemade without written permission. Noparagraphofthis publicationmaybereproduced,copiedor transmittedsave withwritten permissionorinaccordancewith theprovisionsoftheCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct 1988, or undertheterms ofany licence permittinglimitedcopying issued bytheCopyrightLicensingAgency,90TottenhamCourt Road.LondonWIP9HE. Anypersonwho does any unauthorisedact inrelationtothis publicationmay beliable tocriminalprosecutionandcivil claimsfordamages. First published 1994by THEMACMILLANPRESSLTD Houndmills,Basingstoke,HampshireRG21 2XS andLondon Companiesand representatives throughouttheworld ISBN978-1-349-13349-9 ISBN978-1-349-13347-5(eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-13347-5 Acataloguerecord forthisbookisavailable from the British Library. FMSS ILYF Contents Preface x Part I RepubUam Images 1 1 Introduction 3 2 Republican Pseudonyms 8 3 The Iconography of the American Revolution 11 4 North American Classicism 20 5 Public Debate at the Time of the Constitutional Convention 24 6 Republican Images 27 Part D The Romau Example 31 7 The Influence of John Adams 33 8 The Pennsylvania Republicans 41 9 Polybius and the Roman Constitution 46 10 The English and American Constitutions 50 11 The United States Constitution 57 12 The Roman Example 63 partm RepubUam Narratives 67 13 Livy's Empire of Laws 69 14 Plutarch's Lives 77 15 Tacitus and Liberty 83 16 Sallust and Corruption 87 17 Cicero's Res Publica 90 18 Republican Narratives 99 vii viii Contents Part IV English Commonwealths 103 19 Thomas Gordon's Republicanism 105 20 'Cato' and Virtue 111 21 Algernon Sidney and the People 118 22 James Harrington and the Senate 126 23 John Locke and the United States Constitution 133 24 English Commonwealths 142 Part V American Republicans 147 25 The Antifederalists 149 26 Montesquieu's Republics 163 27 James Wilson's Republicanism 172 28 The State Ratifying Conventions 179 29 Publius as a Republican 199 30 American Republicans 211 Part VI Res Publica Rest/tuta 215 31 American Republicanism 217 Notes 247 Abbreviations and Select Bibliography 326 Index 332 On the principles of republicanism was the Constitution founded; on these must it stand. Mercy Otis Warren1 For every constitution there is an epic, for each decalogue a scripture. Robert M. Cover' Preface Anyone whohasspent anypart ofhisorherschoolingreadingSallust, or Cicero's Philippics and orations against Catiline will have some sense of what the word 'republic' means, and republican principles require. The basic premise of this study has been that, although historians and lawyers have long appreciated the importance of re publican ideologyto the early developmentofAmerican institutions, they have not properly understood republicanism, or its influencein America, because contemporary lawyersand historians do not share the founding generation's classical training or interests. Not that American colonial learning was unusual or profound. But its basic framework was classical. My aim in gathering and comparing the primary republican narratives in their American context has been to provide a window into the attitudes and understandings that animated the United States Constitution. This book is not about modern politics, the Republican party, or contemporary America at all.It isabout the United States Constitu tion, and the ideologythatframed it.Not everythinginthe document is 'republican', or explained by the republican tradition. But the Constitution was thought to have created a federal 'republic', and guaranteed a 'republican form of government' to every state in the Union. My interest is in what this meant to the men who designed and ratified America's federal institutions. There are three main groups of scholars who have studied the influence of republican ideology in America. They represent three separate disciplines and have three distinct approaches - the his torians, the lawyers and the classicists.I have some experience with each. Having studiedclassicsasan undergraduate, Itook mydoctor ate inhistory, and nowbelongto afacultyoflaw.Travelling between three worlds, I became interested in the questions that they have in common. Historians usually relate American republican ideology to its British and European antecedents. While not unaware of the early Americans' direct accessto classicalliterature, they tend to consider republican ideas as part of an historical continuum. Historians pay more attention to how it is that republican authors came to be read,than to what they were understood to say.Lawyerscare about the content, but not for its own sake. They regard the founders' x
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