IX. The New Pericles
Approval of the document patched together in Philadelphia, the U.S. Constitution, was by no means assured. In a nation whose population numbered nearly 3 million, the Constitution reflected the political, economic, educational experience and judgment of fifty-five highly educated, wealthy, white men. And, to no one’s surprise, it created institutions that were, in almost every respect, identical to those found in England. As in England, so in the United States, government policy would be carried out by an executive that was not popularly elected—in England a Prime Minister, in the United States a President. As in England, so in the United States, the larger chamber would consist of popularly elected representatives—in England a House of Commons, in the United States a House of Representatives. And, just as in England, so in the United States, one chamber, the so-called “aristocratic” branch of the legislature, would be reserved for men not subject to direct popular election. Their charge would be to protect property, wealth, and privilege.
Even more disturbing, at least to anti-federalists, was how the Constitution restored to this federal government the right to raise revenues from the states and to impose federal laws upon those states without ever having to receive approval from state legislatures. Thus, in the eyes of many, the U.S. Constitution restored the very conditions—taxation without representation—over which the War for Independence had been fought in the first place. This was no Tea Party platform.
All of this may seem odd, until we remember that nowhere among its four and a half thousand words is there the least hint of “democracy.” That is because the United States were constituted as a Republic, a federation of states legally bound together by a constitution under the governance of three branches and, as Article IV, Section 4, explicitly states: guaranteeing “to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,” not a democracy.
This stress on republican values and institutions made citizenship of paramount importance. If the United States was indeed a republic, then what kind of people would be empowered to dispose of its common wealth? If the poor and landless were politically franchised, what would prevent them from legally seizing those things that they otherwise lacked? If, on the other hand, they were completely excluded, then what would prevent them from following the example of Daniel Shays’ men and taking back the very country for which many of them had fought and died?
In either case, the result would be the same: tyranny. In Aristotle’s words:
Since where some own a very great deal of property and others none there comes about either an extreme democracy or an unmixed oligarchy, or a tyranny may result from both of the two extremes, for tyranny springs from both democracy and oligarchy of the most unbridled kind, but much less often from the middle forms of constitution and those near to them (4.1296a).
Yet, how near to the middle dared the United States to lean? The answer, most state lawmakers agreed, lay in Aristotle’s Politics. The key to their dilemma would ultimately be found not in the shape of the institutions they created, but in the citizens they admitted to govern those institutions. And, in this respect, Aristotle’s advice was eminently pragmatic. Citizens should be of such a stature as to be themselves equipped to occupy the offices for which they would be electing representatives. In other words, the only difference between the citizens elected to office and those voting them into office would be that each, in succession, would take his place in public office before vacating that office for the next citizen. “The citizen whom we are seeking to define is a citizen in the strictest sense,” thought Aristotle, “against whom no such exception can be taken, and his special characteristic is that he shares in the administration of justice, and in offices.” No line separates the citizen and the citizen’s competence from the competence of the office holder. Thus, “in the best state,” according to Aristotle, “the citizen is one who is able and willing to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue.” Or, again, “the good citizen must have the knowledge and the ability both to be ruled and to rule, and the merit of the good citizen consists in having a knowledge of the government of free men on both sides.”
We may be inclined to feel that this is simply common sense, which it certainly is. Yet, a great deal is contained in this “ability both to be ruled and to rule.” At the very least, what it contains is a rejection of monarchy and despotism. For, as Aristotle noted, “republican government governs men who are by nature free, the master’s authority governs men who are by nature slaves; and the government of a household is monarchy (since every house is governed by a single ruler), whereas statesmanship is the government of men free and equal.”
We have already noted that republican government qualitatively differs from running a private enterprise. And, now we know why. Individuals who report to and are subject to the master of the household (and today to shareholders and a Board of Directors), whatever else we wish to call them, are in fact doulos: slaves. Citizens and representatives within a republic, by contrast, are by nature free. Those therefore who govern them must have a knowledge of what it means to govern people who are, in fact, free and who are, in fact, equal to them. But there is more.
The citizen also enjoys the same independence as those by whom he is governed and this tells us something not only about the citizen, but also about the kind of political form that is appropriate for this kind of citizen. As Aristotle put it, “one who has the right to participate in deliberative or judicial office is a citizen of the state in which he has that right, and a state is a collection of such persons sufficiently numerous, speaking broadly, to secure independence of life.” Independence, in other words, did not entail independence from the state, but, to the contrary, a state composed of individuals who are independent.
This distinction, it turns out, was absolutely critical to the framers of the Constitution. For, were citizens not independent prior to holding public office, then, as Aristotle knew well, they would seek public office in order to become independent. In the ideal state, by contrast, independent citizens are willing to support office holders because they know that they too will require such support when they assume office. As Aristotle observed:
In earlier times, under the natural system, claiming to do public services in turn, and for somebody in return to look after their own welfare just as previously they looked after his interest when in office themselves; but nowadays owing to the benefits to be got from public sources and from holding office people wish to be in office continuously, just as if it were the case that those in office although sickly people always enjoyed good health—in which case office would no doubt be much run after by invalids.
In other words, in order to ensure that citizens not seek office in order to obtain benefits, the state must make sure that citizens already enjoy these “benefits” prior to becoming office holders. For this reason, Aristotle felt that citizens “should be the owners of property, for they are citizens, and the citizens of a state should be in good circumstances.”
This also followed from Aristotle’s teaching about the relationship of happiness and virtue. Since it followed that an individual could not be virtuous without being happy and could not be happy without wealth, it made no sense to Aristotle that a state could be virtuous while some of its citizens languished. With this in mind, Aristotle counseled that “we should pronounce a state happy having regard not to a particular section of it but to all its citizens.” In other words, in order to ensure the security of republican values and institutions, it was essential that all—and not merely some particular section—of its citizens be prosperous.
But just as virtue is not the same thing as self-interest and happiness not the same thing as pleasure, so prosperity is not the same thing as the unending and unlimited pursuit of wealth. This was Aristotle’s point when he distinguished between natural and perverse ways of accumulating wealth. “These people”—i.e., those who seek unending wealth—“turn all skills into skills of acquiring goods, as though that were the end and everything had to serve that end.” What was required was an appropriate balance. Wealth was needed in order to contribute to the common wealth. But it was also needed in order to weather the storms of fate.
Citizens should not only possess enough to meet their requirements in civic life, but also to encounter the perils that face them from outside; hence they should possess neither so large an amount of wealth that it will be coveted by their neighbors and by stronger states while its possessors will be unable to repel their assailants, nor yet so small an amount as not to be capable of sustaining a war even against equal and similar states.
Aristotle was not naïve. He recognized that states needed enough wealth to defeat potential adversaries. But he also knew that too much wealth would create divisions within and could potentially undermine the very public institutions and values that made citizenship valuable in the first place.
So, if our aim is to preserve republican institutions and values, then who should be a citizen? Aristotle could not have expressed himself more clearly.
It clearly follows that in the state which is best governed and possesses men who are just absolutely, and not merely relatively to the principle of the constitution, the citizens must not lead the life of mechanics or tradesmen, for such a life is ignoble, and inimical to virtue. Neither must they be husbandmen, since leisure is necessary both for the development of virtue and the performance of political duties.
These sentiments, which strike us today as so contrary to democracy, stood at the heart of Alexander Hamilton’s three great contributions to the Federalist Papers, nos. 12, 13 and 35. In no. 12, Hamilton acknowledged both the benefits and the risks of a commercial republic. The benefits, of course, were the production of great wealth and prosperity for all—including the husbandman (farmer) and the mechanic (tradesman). But, like Aristotle, neither was Hamilton under any illusions that such wealth and prosperity would not provoke jealousy and perhaps war from economic rivals. And, for Hamilton, this external threat required that the federal government be granted the powers to tax wealth in an amount necessary for defense and protection of the republic. Nor was Hamilton under any illusions about from whom such revenues must be raised. They must come from the wealthy and principally from those who own land.
As the necessities of the State, nevertheless, must be satisfied in some mode or other, the defect of other resources must throw the principal weight of public burdens on the possessors of land. And as, on the other
hand, the wants of the government can never obtain an adequate supply, unless all the sources of revenue are open to its demands, the finances of the community, under such embarrassments, cannot be put into a situation consistent with its respectability or its security. Thus we shall not even have the consolations of a full treasury, to atone for the oppression of that valuable class of the citizens who are employed in the cultivation of the soil. But public and private distress will keep pace with each other in gloomy concert; and unite in
deploring the infatuation of those counsels which led to disunion.
Of course, the “counsels” of which Hamilton speaks are those who would oppose the federal government’s right to tax wealth: the anti-federalists.
In Federalist no. 13, therefore, Hamilton identified a separate, but related, danger: perpetual economic growth would lead to ever greater inequality among citizens and, ultimately, to civil war. Such would inevitably follow from the dangerous combination of expanding population, territory, and commerce. In response, Hamilton called attention to a distinction easily recognized and quickly acknowledged by his colleagues in Philadelphia, but often lost on the public at large. It was true, wrote Hamilton, that a democracy must remain small and limited in order to function. But, noted Hamilton, the United States would be constituted not as a democracy, but as a republic, and therefore it would not suffer the same limitations and risk the same dangers as a democracy.
The error which limits republican government to a narrow district has been unfolded and refuted in preceding papers. I remark here only that it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of a republic with a democracy, applying to the former reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter. The true distinction between these forms was also adverted to on a former occasion. It is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.
But, on some level, this argument merely kicked the can down the road. For, if the United States were to be a republic and not a democracy, then how would each state determine who could take part in the republic? Aristotle, we know, felt that a republic could only survive if its citizens were men of wealth, leisure, education, and good health. He therefore excluded all individuals tied in any way to private enterprise: not simply farmers, tradesmen, and laborers, but merchants and businessmen as well.
As we see in Federalist no. 35, Hamilton was familiar with these limits. And, yet, he also recognized their impracticality in a republic that was, after all, composed largely of merchants, businessmen, and farmers. His hope was that lower classes would see their own interests served by promoting the interests of their superiors, and that these, in turn, would see their own interests served by promoting the interests of the republic. He therefore believed that “mechanics and manufacturers will always be inclined, with few exceptions, to give
their votes to merchants, in preference to persons of their own professions or trades.” This is because “they know that the merchant is their natural patron and friend; and they are aware, that however great the confidence they may justly feel in their own good sense, their interests can be more effectually promoted by the merchant than by themselves.” In other words, those occupying lesser professions would simply demure to their social and occupational superiors.
They are sensible that their habits in life have not been such as to give them those acquired endowments,
without which, in a deliberative assembly, the greatest natural abilities are for the most part useless; and that the influence and weight, and superior acquirements of the merchants render them more equal to a contest with any spirit which might happen to infuse itself into the public councils, unfriendly to the manufacturing and trading interests.
This, in turn, led Hamilton to conclude that “artisans and manufacturers will commonly be disposed to bestow their votes upon merchants and those whom they recommend.”
Federalists held firm through 1800 when, of the now nineteen states and territories, only Kentucky and Vermont enjoyed universal white male suffrage and fully fourteen maintained property qualifications. (The remaining three required, reasonably, that voters also be taxpayers.)
But, history was not on Hamilton’s side. By 1830, those favoring universal white male suffrage had added five states to the original two. And of the now twenty-five United States, only two maintained property restrictions.
Thomas Jefferson, who oversaw this transition and in many ways was responsible for it, viewed the nation’s march to the west as a means to provide property to America’s exploding population. Property, for Jefferson, translated into independence; and independence translated into freedom not simply from necessity, but freedom as well from having to work in another individual’s private enterprise or household.
Yet, even as Jefferson promoted the march west, epitomized by the Louisiana Purchase, which more than doubled America’s territory, he was anxious to remind his countrymen that property and wealth, without education, was a sure formula to promote demagogues. For, without education, newly propertied and newly enriched farmers would be powerless to resist the rhetoric of politicians.
Jefferson’s seemingly oxymoronic Democratic-Republican Party aimed to create the conditions necessary to sustain republican values and institutions: land, wealth, leisure, and education for all politically enfranchised. But, it was not to be. Precisely as Jefferson had feared, political power fell increasingly to individuals best able to capture the attention of America’s least well-educated and least well-informed voters, an aptitude perfectly suited to Gorgias’ fine art, not Jefferson’s.
Workers objected, but to no avail. Thus, as one Philadelphia tradesman complained in the early 1830s, “the inestimable blessing of ‘universal suffrage’ . . . can be of no further use” unless workers also “possess sufficient knowledge to make proper use of it.” Yet, universal public education for working families was being contemplated by no one.
The consequences that followed from depriving politically enfranchised Americans of social, economic and intellectual enfranchisement to match their new political status were predictable. America’s new economic power placed it in conflict with the powers of western Europe. Its need for ever more resources and territory to satisfy its insatiable appetite for economic growth placed it in conflict with the native American nations of the south and southwest. And, just as Jefferson had predicted (and, of course, as Aristotle had predicted well before him), political enfranchisement by itself did lead in fact to the rise of demagogues.
But, it also had another consequence that Aristotle had foreseen, but that Jefferson had apparently overlooked. Once the production of never ending wealth had supplanted the more natural and reasonable goal of wealth in the service of the republic, traditional American values themselves began to change. As ever more American citizens fell under and into the service of other Americans, the very notion of uniquely republican values and institutions soon ceased to make much sense.
Today we view this gradual erosion of republican values and institutions uniquely from the vantage point of slavery. But this may actually obscure the change that was taking place. Just as Americans in southern states had grown accustomed to a large segment of their population—slaves—working in the private households of their wealthy, educated and independent citizens; so American in the northern states were growing increasingly accustomed to a large segment of their population—wage laborers—working in the private households of their wealthy, educated and independent citizens. So, just as Aristotle predicted would happen to any nation the majority of whose citizens labored in the households of others, America was quickly forgetting its republican values and abandoning its republican institutions.
What happened next could have been predicted. Much as Pericles had over two millennia earlier, an successful army general with an appreciation for the appetites of the common man and an insatiable ambition for personal honor and glory stepped from the shadows. And, like Pericles, this general knew how to use the common man’s visceral hatred for those who were different from himself—in this case bankers, lawyers, native Americans, and African slaves—to fuel his political ambitions.
Enter Andrew Jackson—the new Pericles.
