Classical definition of republic

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The Classical Definition of a republic by W. Lindsay Wheeler.

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A Classical Republic, (Greek: πολιτεια; Latin: respublica) is a "mixed constitutional government" which embodies civic duty, virtue, social cohesion and where there is a high devotion, fidelity and regard for the rule of law. 1 This definition of the form of a republic existed from Classical Antiquity to about the French Revolutionary period. Since that time and because classical republicanism gave birth to liberalism, 85 the term republic has been confused with the ideas of democracy and liberalism. 2 The appellation "classical" is then applied to the old meaning of republic to separate it from its newer modern connotations.

A republic, in the classical form, is a type of government that is made up of a mixture of elements from the basic pure forms of government: in its simplest form it can be a mixture of oligarchy (or aristocracy) and democracy; to a more complex type of government mixture; monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy and to more complexity. After the first three basic forms of government (i.e. (1) monarchy, (2) aristocracy, (3) democracy), the classical republic is the "fourth" type of government. All the classical republics were distinguished by the establishment of a senate which grew into what is called a bicameral legislative body (the upper house being aristocratic {not elected by the people or if the people did vote for the members, chosen from the aristocracy}), a popular assembly and by a constitution that marks out the duties and responsibilities of the different bodies. 121 This is not to be confused with the separation of powers (executive/legislative/judicial); a classical republic is the combination and harmonious interaction of different social groups/classes/estates within a polity where there are distinctions of rank. 100 It is a partnership in δικέ (Latin: justice; English: righteousness) 105, where each group respects the prerogatives of the other and the division of function.

The classical republic or 'mixed government' is a product of the cultural mindset of the Indo-European, races of trifunctionality74 and by and large, generated by citizen/soldier/farmer societies which exhibit hierarchical and patriarchal instincts. In Western culture, it was first developed by the Doric Greeks on the island of Crete. 11 It is a by-product of the special Doric Cretan mentality of syncretism (which "Crete" forms the central portion of the word).62 "What the Dorians endeavored to obtain in a state was good order, or cosmos, the regular combination of different elements." 58

Because of the character of the Anglo-Saxons,74 Britain in the 13th century naturally evolved† into the structure of a classical republic mirroring the Spartan model. 75 The old English word "Commonwealth" is same as the Latin word res publica. 57 Though not a true classical republic, the Founding Fathers of the United States modeled America along the same lines as her mother country, Britain, and the Roman Republic with her civilian head. Since the 1920's, there have been no governments that are 'mixed'.

Other names for this form of government can be "limited monarchy", "mixed monarchy", "aristo-democracy"115, "mixed regime", "mixed government" or "limited democracy". In Greek literature it is furthermore noted as a μικτη πολιτεία or μέσος πολίτης.

Contents

Ancient Greek political philosophy

(This section only answers how they named forms of government. This is only a partiality.) The Greeks defined differing governments by their dominant factor. Aristotle writes: "Now a constitution (Politea) is the ordering of a state (Polis) in respect of its various magistracies, and especially the magistracy that is supreme over all matters. For the government is everywhere supreme over the state and the constitution is the government". 3 Our customary designation for a monarchy that aims at the common advantage is 'kingship'; for a government of more than one yet only a few 'aristocracy', ...while when the multitude govern the state with a view to the common advantage, it is called by the name common to all the forms of constitution, 'politeia' (society). 4 Where a government has only a king, the dominant factor, it is called a monarchy. Where a government has only a few nobles ruling, the dominant factor, it is called an aristocracy. Where the society is the dominant factor it is called a politeia. Where the demos, i.e. the common people, are the dominant factor, it is called a democracy.

The Greek word for State is "Polis". Aristotle writes "A collection of persons all alike does not constitute a state". 5 This Greek word, "Politeia" is then named for every government that includes numerous classes of people involved in governing and a basic foundational law, which is called a constitution that defines and delegates rights and responsibilities of those classes. A republic is one that does not have a dominant factor.

(Hence, the phrase "democratic republic" is an oxymoron. A democracy is when the common people are dominant and a republic is mixed government wherein there is no dominant element. Therefore to say a "democratic republic" is an oxymoron. The confusion lies in that the word πολιτεια also means "constitution" in Greek. For that reason, it is better to say "constitutional democracy" other than "democratic republic".)

(For further expose, q.v. Ancient Greek political philosophy)

The Greek aspect

"Politea" is a Greek word used by Aristotle in his book, Politics, to describe a republican form of government.

Aristotle records that "some people assert that the best constitution must be a combination of all the forms of constitution, therefore praise the constitution of Sparta." 6 He further argues that the better the constitution is mixed, the more permanent it is. 7 The definition he gives for this kind of government is a "politean"; the form intermediate between a democracy and an oligarcy, which is termed a republic, (mesi de touton in kalousi politeian) for the government is constituted from the class that bears arms. 8 Again, Aristotle states that constitutional government is, to put it simply, a mixture of oligarchy and democracy. 9

Polybius (as also Plato and Aristotle) distinguishes three types of governments: "kingship, aristocracy, democracy". Furthermore, like Aristotle, he goes on to state that the best constitution is that "which partakes of all these three elements". 10 "The first to construct a constitution--that of Sparta--on this principle", Lycurgus, with some inspiration from his fellow Doric brothers in Crete and the support of Delphi (which was staffed by Cretan priests)11 created a government that combined an hereditary kingship with body of advisors from the aristocracy and another that represented the rest of the people (the democracy), all being checks and balances on each other. (q.v. Cretan/Spartan connection.)

Polybius concludes by saying: "The result of this combination has been that the Lacedaemonians retained their freedom for the longest period of any people." 12 and "...for securing unity among the citizens, for safeguarding the Laconian territory and preserving the liberty of Sparta inviolate, the legislation and provisions of Lycurgus were so excellent that I am forced to regard his wisdom as something superhuman." 13 His writings had a great influence upon Cicero, Charles de Montesquieu and the Founding Fathers of the United States. 32

Plutarch records; "Amongst the many changes and alterations which Lycurgus made, the first and of greatest importance was the establishment of the senate, which having a power equal to the king's in matters of great consequence, and as Plato expresses it, allaying and qualifying the fiery genius of the royal office, gave steadiness and safety to the commonwealth. For the state, which before had no firm basis to stand upon, but leaned one while towards an absolute monarchy, when the kings had the upper hand, and another while towards a pure democracy, when the people had the better, found in this establishment of the senate a central weight, like ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium; the twenty-eight always adhering to the kings so far as to resist democracy, and on the other hand, supporting the people against the establishment of absolute monarchy." 56

The Spartan Republic

Sparta - the Great Rhetra, c. early 7th c. BC {There is an error in this image; the Gerousia was not made up of citizen Spartiates but of representatives from the Doric aristocratical families.}
Sparta - the Great Rhetra, c. early 7th c. BC {There is an error in this image; the Gerousia was not made up of citizen Spartiates but of representatives from the Doric aristocratical families.}

Plato in The Laws records how the Cretans and the Spartans could not classify their own form of government:

Megillus the Spartan: "Why sir, when I consider our Lacedaemonian constitution, I really cannot tell you offhand which would be the proper name for it. It actually seems to have its resemblances to an autocracy--in fact, the power of our ephors is astonishingly autocratic--and yet at times I think it looks like the most democratic of all societies. Again, it would be sheer paradox to deny that it is an aristocracy, while yet again a feature of it is a life monarchy, asserted by all mankind, as well as ourselves, to be the very oldest of such institutions."
Clinias the Cretan: "I find myself in the same perplexity as you, Megillus. I am quite at a loss to identify our Cnossian constitution confidently with any of them."
The Athenian (Plato): "That, my friends, is because you enjoy real constitutions, whereas the types we have specified are not constitutions, but settlements enslaved to the domination of some component section, each taking its designation from the dominant factor." 15

What is described above is the archtype of mixed government. Cicero labelled Sparta a republic; i.e. respublica Lacedaemoniorum because it was mixta. 39

Sparta, not Athens, is the site where in the first time in recorded Greek political life and in Western culture that a body of councilors took initiative and responsibility for presenting proposals and resolutions to an assembly. This occurred in the eighth or seventh century B.C. 16

Duties and responsibilities in the Spartan Republic are outlined in short verses called Rhetra (the constitution). These Rhetra are attributed to Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Lacedaemonians. The Spartan society consisted of two kings from two different royal families called the Agiads and the Eurypontids. There also existed from former times a royal council called the Gerousia (old men). Members of the Gerousia were appointed for life from the head of the aristocratic families. The council was made of 28 aristocratic members with two kings sitting in making a total of thirty. Upon this basis did Lycurgus add the Rhetra circa 776 B.C. At some time, an oligarchic body with members elected from the citizen body for one year was introduced called the Ephors. It was the Ephors who presided over an assembly of all the Spartan citizens called Spartiates which could only shout approval or disapproval of measures presented by the two bodies, the Gerousia and the Ephors. The whole legislative process required two legislative bodies and the whole body of citizens to affirm it. Furthermore, the Lycurgan constitution spelled out that if the demos passed crooked rhetra the gerousia and the kings were to veto them.

The Athenian Polity

In 594 B.C., Solon, an Ionian Greek and an inductee of the Seven Sages of Greece, was an admirer of Sparta and an adherent of Doric philosophy. Copying the same principles of mixed government from them and in collaboration with Epimenides a Cretan sage, he tried to apply them to the Athenian polity. He divided the citizens into four classes, which had assemblies according to their assessment amount. This he called "Five-hundred-measure men". He instituted a leadership of Nine Archons. In between these two bodies, he placed the ancient body, the Council of the Aeropagus to have the "duty of guarding the laws" and creating a balance between the Archons and that of the assemblies. 44 However, Peisistratos, being a popular leader, seized the reigns of power and put an end to the reforms of Solon. His sons continued the tyranny.

Upon their abuse of leadership, a Spartan army cleared out the tyranny. Into the political vacuum created, Cleisthenes stepped in and restored much of the work of Solon but added other institutions which were more democratically oriented. He watered down the mixed government which Prof. Donald Kagan recognized as a "limited democracy". 109

The Doric form of mixed government was not to succeed in Ionian Athens because as the German classicist Karl Otfried Müller noted, "...the temperature which he (Solon) chose was too artificial to be lasting;..." 110

Doric character and mentality

Trifunctionality, evinced by the Doric Greeks, was especially strong. They always migrated in groups of three; Hylleans/Dymanes/Pamphylians. 76 The Dorians were so peculiar in this trait that in classical texts they were called the "Thrice-divided" Dorians. 77 Wherever they migrated, the new land was divided into three parts. 78 In Lacedæmonia, the Dorians not only divided themselves from the aboriginal peoples into a triad of Dorians/ Perioci/Helots, they also divided Doric society into three parts, royalty/aristocracy/equals (or similars). Furthermore, the tripod figured prominently in their religion of Apollo. 79 It was natural then that their culture imprinted a tripartite form of monarchy/aristocracy/democracy on their government. Studying the mixed constitution of Sparta, Dicaearchus of Messana was to label his treatise; the Tripoliticus.

The Greeks, esp. the Doric Greeks, derived their philosophy, laws and institutions from Nature; the cosmos. They observed order in the Cosmos and, as "lovers of reality" (realists)111, attempted to imitate that order in their lives and society; i.e. the Natural order. Hence, "doing politics" was about "ordering" the state in accordance with reason formed by precepts and maxims garnered from nature. Furthermore, attuned to beauty, 99 they, in everything they did, attempted to do it with proportion, harmony and symmetry; the laws of beauty.

As the cosmos had an established harmony that bestows an underlying universal law, the Greek conviction was that limits were good. Exaggeration was foreign to them; they detested extremes and the idea of the limitless repelled them. "Greek words which meant boundless, illimitable, and the like, had bad connotations." 82 Their idea of freedom was bound up in the word, "sophrosuné" which meant that in human society just like in nature, "it meant accepting the bounds of excellence laid down for human nature; restraining the impulses to unrestricted freedom, shunning excess, obeying the inner laws of harmony and proportion". 83 Therefore, their form of government was an expression of those inferences. Rejecting the extreme form of the simple forms of government, they developed a type that was the Golden Mean of all them; i.e., the μέσος πολίτης.

Plutarch sums up well the Lacedæmonian spirit when he says, "We are not in the world in order to give laws, but...in order to obey the commands of the gods" 84 (where those commands of the gods are embedded in nature and emanate from the divine oracles).

The Roman aspect

Cicero

Cicero also terms the republic as a "mixed form of constitution". Cicero was very familiar with Dicaearchus's treatise; the Tripoliticus 18 and "was greatly admired by Cicero". Cicero provides the knowledge train of this history of tri-political government:

"This type of discussion, which I am undertaking, derives most of its material from that other philosophical school, of which Plato, was the leader. The men who came after him, Aristotle and Heraclides of Pontus, another follower of Plato, threw light on the whole topic of national constitutions through the inquiries they conducted. Moreover, as you know, Theophrastus, Aristotle's disciple specialized in this type of investigation; and another of Aristotle's pupils, Dicaearchus, was active in the same field of study." 19

The modality of mixed government is explained by Cicero: "When however, instead, a group of men seize the state by exploiting their wealth or noble birth or some other resource, that is a political upheaval, though they call themselves conservatives. If, on the other hand, the people gain the supremacy, and the whole government is conducted according to their wishes, a state of affairs has arisen which is hailed as liberty, but is, in fact, chaos. But when there is a situation of mutual fear, with one person or one class fearing another, then because nobody has sufficient confidence in his own strength a kind of bargain is struck between the ordinary people and the men who are powerful." The result, in that case, is the mixed constitution which Scipio recommends. (It is footnoted as monarchy, oligarchy and democracy.) Which means that weakness, not nature or good intention, is the mother of justice." 20 Furthermore, in De republica, he has Scipio observe that the common forms of government regularly degenerate and to avoid these cyclical movements (the Kyklos), a fourth type of government is needed; one that is composed of all three. "He makes Laelius say that the compound form is best, in that it embodies the caritas of the king, the consilium of the aristocracy, and the libertas of the popular regime." 59 He also writes that a kingdom can be a commonwealth as can be an aristocratic government but denies that a simple multitude (a democracy) is a commonwealth. 101

Cicero's definition of a commonwealth is "the property of the people. But a people are not any collection of human beings brought together in any sort of way, but an assemblage of people in large numbers associated in an agreement with respect to justice and a partnership for the common good." 102

It is Cicero that popularized the idea of 'mixed' government and gave it wide currency, influencing many during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Founding Fathers of America. Michael Grant explicates the significance of Cicero: "This 'mixed' constitution, previously admired by the historian Polybius (to whom Cicero's debts were extensive), reappeared again and again in early discussions of the constitution of the United States of America, figuring prominently, for example, in John Adams Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States (1787). 17

The Roman republic

For a short time, in the early history of the Romans, there was diarchy between Romulus, the Roman King and Titus Tatius, a Sabine King. The Sabines who lived in close proximity to the early Romans and who, in different periods intermarried with them, "declared themselves to be a colony of the Lacedæmonians". 52 The Sabine king instituted a royal council and divided the combined kingdom into three tribes; the Ramnes, the Tities, and the Luceres. After the death of Tatius, Romulus continued these policies and joined the eminent men of the state in a council which was given the name Senatus (Senate) derived from senix (old men) following the same principles and practices of the Lacedaemonians who named their upper assembly, the gerousia {old men}). 103 "...(T)hat many Laconian laws and customs appear amongst the Roman institutions" was also noted by Plutarch because of the reign of Numa Pompilius, another Sabine who was a king over the Romans. 52 Cicero marks the beginning of the Roman commonwealth when Romulus "gave complete obedience to the auspices" and the foundation of the Senate. 103

The Roman res publica, as promulgated by Romulus:

"...he immediately resolved to appoint senators, with whom he would administer public affairs, and he chose 100 men from the patricians. ... When he had determined these regulations, he distinguished the ... powers which he wished each class to have. For the king he chose the following prerogatives : first, to have the chief authority in rites and sacrifices, ... then, to maintain the guardianship of the laws and the national customs, ... to judge in person the greatest crimes, but to leave the lesser crimes to the senators, ... to summon the Senate and to convoke the Assembly, ... to have absolute command in war. To the council of the Senate ... he assigned the following authority : to decide and to vote on whatever matter the king introduced. ... To the common people he granted these three things : to elect the magistrates and to ratify the laws and to decide on war whenever the king permitted ... The people did not vote all together, but they were convoked by curias." 127

The Roman Republic, a mirror of the Spartan republic, was formed basically on a tri-partite form. There were the king who had the leadership in war, the Roman Senate which represented the aristocratic families, which had the duty of shaping law and the citizens who were organized into Roman assemblies (comitia) which were further delineated into curia, tribes and centuries. The Senate would pass resolutions and magistrates would present them before their respective assemblies. The citizens would either approve or disapprove the resolutions.

In 509 B.C., the Tarquins, kings of Etruscan background, were expelled due to moral turpitude and for superceding the Roman political system of mixed government. In their place, the first counsul Lucius Junius Brutus was elected and the mixed governmental system was restored. Dual non-royal leadership in the form of consuls took over the position held by the kings. The tripartite form of the republic remained but instead of kings in the leadership role, non-royal personages assumed the lead in state affairs. In 454 B.C., the Roman Senate sent a commission of three men to Greece to study and report on the legislation of Solon, Lycurgus, and other Greek constitutions. Upon its return to Rome, they choose ten men, called the Decemviri, to run Rome while they worked to formulate a new code for Rome. This code was adopted from the teachings of Solon and given the title "The Twelve Tables" which became the written constitution of the Roman Republic, the SPQR. 43

The Roman Republic was a by product of Romanitas.

The term "res publica"

The term "res publica" is commonly translated as "property of the people" or refers to anything "that is not considered to be private property, but which is rather held in common by many people" and/or is confused with meaning popular government, popular sovereignty or democracy which is all misleading. First and foremost, the short phrase is a legal term. Roman Law was divided into two categories: i.e. "res divina" and "res publica". Law pertaining to the religious duties of the state and its officials was titled res divina; those pertaining to the secular and mundane spheres was titled res publica. The word was then adapted as their title to their form of government. Respublica is better translated as the "public things" and applied to governments that seek the common advantage of the whole society; royalty, aristocracy, commons.

Renaissance

In the 13th century, the city-state of Venice underwent many governmental changes in order to construct a classical republic.† It restricted the power of the Doge, created a senate to represent the aristocratic families and a greater Council, upper middle class, which was their democratic body. 60

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote "For this is the best form of polity, being partly kingdom, since there is one at the head of all; partly aristocracy, in so far as a number of persons are set in authority; partly democracy, that is, government by the people, in so far as the rulers can be chosen from the people, and the people have the right to choose their rulers." 60 St. Thomas claimed that this form of government was in practice among the Hebrews:

"For Moses and his successors governed the people in such a way that each of them was rule over all, so that there was a kind of kingdom. Moreover, seventy-two men were chosen, who were the elders in virtue...so that there was an element of aristocracy. But it was a democratical government in so far as the rulers were chosen from all the people." 60

{Many Protestant preachers in the following centuries would conclude the same and also choose the period of the Judges for this concept.72 A Protestant preacher, referencing the text of Deuteronomy {17.18-20} writes, "God gave to Moses for His people as their form of civil government a constitutional republic, a set of rules (laws) which no one, not even a majority of the people or a future king and his government, were to be above." 61)

Early Modern Era

St.Robert Bellarmine argued for mixed government "Because of the corruption of human nature we judge a monarchy blended from aristocracy and democracy better at this time." 36

Niccoló Machiavelli was a famous Republican theorist of his time. Also concurring with the ancients, he wrote that "the sagacious legislators, knowing the vices of each of these systems of government, (i.e. speaking of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) by themselves, have chosen one that should partake of all of them, judging that to be the most stable and solid. In fact, when there is combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, and the power of the people, then these three powers will watch and keep each other reciprocally in check." And then he advises that in order to found a republic that would endure a long time one should organize her along the lines of Sparta. 87 Though he commended the "form" of mixed government, he did much to deconstruct the ethos behind ancient Greek republics thereby changing its meaning. 89 (see below; "Shift in meaning".)

The British Commonwealth

Since the 9th century A.D., the earliest recorded evidence shows that the English also exhibited the Indo-European trait of trifunctionality. In a slightly different system than the Doric Greeks, the English society was divided into three groups, orders, and/or estates: these were the oratores, those who pray; bellatores, those who fight; and laboratores, those who work. This tripartite community of priests, warriors and toilers naturally evolved † into a mixed government in Britain; the British Commonwealth.71

There is no single document that forms the government but with the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, England began her way in constitutional government. Binding down the King to obey a written law, 80 the Magna Carta laid the groundwork for the House of Lords. In 1295, a Model Parliament was instituted made up of representatives of towns and villages. This first parliament was a combination of the three estates of Britain; the lords spiritual (bishops), the lords temporal, and the commons. The king was not considered an "estate"; he was above the three. In 1297, the parliament was split into two different houses, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Since the Magna Carta, England became a constitutional monarchy and the year 1297 is then the date of the beginning of mixed government under a constitutional monarchy; i.e. a limited monarchy.

Up to this time, England really had no political terminology. It was Greek scholars among the English that transported classical political terminology into the body politic. In the Tudor reign, John Aylmer saw the resemblance between his form of government and Sparta. Though he was on the fringe of English political thought, his insight would influence greatly future English political thought. The influence of classical political writings led Sir Thomas Smyth, in 1583, to describe England under Queen Elizabeth I as a republic; to wit: De Republica Anglorum; the Manner of Government or Policie of the Realme of England. It was the title of his book, a study of the English government at his time. Sir Smyth points out that English government is mixed and therefore a true commonwealth. Furthermore, he follows the ancient Greeks as describing all commonwealths as mixed. (The recognition of England as a republic existed in the time of the American Revolution as well.75) In 1604, William Stoughton revived the theory of mixed government in his work As assertion for true and Christian church-policie and formed the basis of the Whig theory of mixed government. 33

In 1648, radical Protestant anticlericalism spilled over into the political realm. Civil war broke out and Oliver Cromwell ended "mixed" government by abolishing the monarchy and the House of Lords. Though they called their government a "Commonwealth", by classical terminology, it was a democracy which soon devolved into the dictatorship of Cromwell (just as Socrates predicted in Plato's Republic; a perfect example of the Kyklos).

After the defeat of Cromwell's son, a restoration took place returning England to her original design of mixed government; three estates governed under a king and all under the rule of law. Sir John Spelman's description of British government, as an example, would become the received version of the ancient constitution for the next two hundred years:

"The high court of Parliament therefore resembling a chair of three feet, the two houses make but two of the three, which without the third is lame and useless (as to making the law) but with the third become a firm and useful seat, and makes that sacred tripos from whence the civil oracles of our law are delivered." 70

In his influential collection The Tudor Constitution (1960), Prof. Geoffrey Elton concurred with John Almyer's description of Tudor constitutional arrangements.

(For more information, see: History of the British constitution)

The American regime (democratic republic)

(America is called a republic.)
The history of mixed government in America goes back to the chief founders of New England. The early Massachusetts government was predominantly aristocratic. John Cotton and John Winthrop had an aversion to democracy. The Puritan preachers strongly believed that Scriptures only approved monarchy and aristocracy. "At best, Winthrop and his friends believed in what they called 'a mixt aristocracy'". 24 (See section below on "Occurrences of the word".)

When the Articles of Confederation failed, a constitutional convention was convened to bring about a better form of federal government on 25 May 1787. With a deep familiarity in the Classics, the convention members had a deep distrust of democracy. Governor Robert Morris of Pennsylvania believed that the Senate should be an aristocratic body composed of rich men holding office for life. Elbridge Gerry, a delegate from Massachusetts, declared that he "abhorred" democracy as "the worst of all political evils". Edmund Randolph, the governor of Virginia, believed that Virginia's Senate was designed as check against the tendencies of democracy. John Dickinson (lawyer), another delegate, strongly urged that the United States Senate would be structured as nearly as possible to the House of Lords. 25 Finally, Alexander Hamilton wanted the American government to mirror the British government and also proposed that the Senate be styled along the same lines as the House of Lords. 26

Woodrow Wilson, in Division and Reunion (pg 12), wrote that "The Federal government was not by intention a democratic government. In plan and in structure it had been meant to check the sweep and power of popular majorities..." 27 Professor John D. Hicks in his book on The Federal Union said "Such statements could be multiplied almost at will." 28

"All agreed that society was divided along class lines and the "'the most common and durable source of factions'" was "'the various and unequal distribution of property'", as Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10. The common philosophy accepted by most of the delegates was that of balanced government. They wanted to construct a national government in which no single interest would dominate the others. Since the men in Philadelphia represented groups alarmed by the tendencies of the agrarian interests to interfere with property, they were primarily concerned with balancing the government in the direction of protection for property and business." 14

Being a majority of Masons and greatly influenced by the Enlightenment, the founding fathers of America, in creating the government, borrowed the mixed form from classical republicanism but substituted commercialism, humanism with its egalitarian slant and liberalism as its ethos which is embodied in the Bill of Rights.136 They rejected much of the classical learning and wisdom necessary for the proper functioning of a republic. 116 (For instance, Thomas Jefferson responding to a letter, wrote, "the introduction of the new principle of representative democracy has rendered useless almost everything written before on the structure of government; and, in a great measure, relieves our regret, if the political writings of Aristotle or of any other ancient, have been lost, or are unfaithfully rendered or explained to us." 128) Along with the preceding, the following factors such as no true aristocracy in the U.S.; the constitution forbidding distinctions of rank; and the milieu of Protestant anticlericalism 118 sabotoges a true republican form of government. They sought to re-invent the republican form for a "Novus Ordo" (New order); a new modern cosmopolitan liberal society. The American regime was an anomaly full of self-defeating contradictions. Some have called their anomaly, this new creation of theirs, a "democratic republic" for it ensconces the humanist/masonic ideal of the "equality of man". Paul A. Rahe, author of the three volume study, Republics, Ancient and Modern, says of America that it was "a regime lacking a regimen". 117 America is not a classical republic.

(For more information, see: United States Constitutional Convention, List of the multiple definitions of republic.)

Threefold structure

The tri-political concept of government and the tripartite form of mixed government (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy) can be seen in the United States Constitution.

The Presidency is the element of the monarchical office. The United States Senate is the representation of the natural aristocracy. 42 The House of Representatives is the element of democracy, representing the people. The Senate was originally intended to be the representative body of a natural aristocracy and the landed gentry, as well as a representation of state's interests, as a corporate entity, in the Federal Government. Madison said, "The Senate, on the other hand, will derive its powers from the States, as political and coequal societies; and these will be represented on the principle of equality in the Senate, as they now are in the existing Congress." 29 Senators were appointed by their respective State legislatures and were not voted on by the people. The Senate was originally designed to check the House of Representatives and the Presidential office and be the "guardian of the constitution".

This is the original principle of the American bicameral legislative body; i.e. the senate and the house of representatives. In Article III, sec 4, it states, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government..." This means that all the state governments must have a bicameral house with the upper house being the seat of the landed gentry, not elected by the people.

Destruction of the upper house

In the Kyklos, republics are converted to democracies 104 by demagogues and revolutionary leaders who modify the constitution whereby the powers of the upper house, i.e. the Senate, are restricted and demoted. The destruction of the upper house is one of the political manifestations of synoecism where the upper classes are destroyed or subsumed by the common people. It occurs when the aristocracy (and the royalty) loses their participation and power in government.

Aristotle remarks that around 480 B.C., the Athenian polity was by slow stages growing into a democracy and about 462 B.C., the senate, the Council of the Areopagites, was stripped of its powers and the constitution relaxed turning the Athenian politiea into a democracy.45 The leadership of Ephialtes is the demarcation point between the two forms of government. The destruction of the Senate or its removal of powers is what ends classical republics.

Circa 100 B.C., the Roman Republic suffered the same paradigm of synoecism when the tribune Saturninus, a demogogue, brought forward a law for the redistribution of land. Embeded within it was a clause that the Roman Senate had to publicly swear an oath to conform to the people's will in their vote and could not upon pain of punishment and expulsion from the Senate oppose it in any way. By the threat of mob violence, all but one of the senators acquiesced, and the law was passed.125 Though the Senate and the Senators remained, they were but shallow figureheads devoid of any political power. For a short time, the Roman Republic descended into ochlocracy. Convulsed with civil upheavels and fragmented by faction, the Roman Republic was in its death throes and succumbed to dictatorship in less than sixty years.

In modern times, humanism and the Enlightenment philosophers unleased this paradigm of synoecism. Prof. J. Salwyn Schapiro writes of one of the products of the French Revolution was that "it provided for a unicameral parliament, thereby eliminating the reactionary influence of an aristocratic upper house, as in England." 37

The egalitarian impulse embodied in socialism also seeks the same objective: "The abolition of the Senate, however, is a reform which American socialists demand in common with the Socialists of several countries. Thus we find the British Social Democratic Party, the Belgian Labor Party, the French Socialist Party and several other Socialist parties, demanding the abolition of the Senate, or, in England, the House of Lords". 41

In Britain, the House of Lords was nullified when the law was changed, (the Parliament Bill of 1911), making it possible that the House of Commons (the assembly of the people) could overrule any veto of the House of Lords. The monarchy and the House of Lords are empty figureheads devoid of any real power. In classical terminology, Britain today is a democracy for the common people are the dominant factor. 93

In America, the XVII amendment in 1913 fundamentally changed the character of the American government. It starts by saying that "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof,..."

Senators are now elected by the people; it demolished the distinctiveness of the upper house as a representation of the states. The states no longer have any representation in the Federal government. What little element of mixed government that remained in the original setup and plan of the American government was eliminated. The people elect both the Senators and the Representatives. The U.S. form of government was changed from a psuedo-republic/democratic republic to a democracy for the common people are the dominant factor and to a degree demolished the federal character of the government.

Shift in meaning130

Confusion reigns in the definition of this word both in Classical Antiquity and in the modern era. After reviewing the sad state of affairs regarding the definition of this subject, Prof. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn sums up the situation pretty well:

"We may well agree that the mischief started by uneducated popularizers has already reached such proportions that a Hercules is needed to clean this Augian stable of popular misconceptions, false labels, and mispresented ideologies. Even some of the more intelligent writers have become a prey to popular pressure, and as modern intellectuals do not lead the masses any more, but follow them and subordinate their ideas and language to the demands of the market, the confusion has now reached its climax." 124

In classical antiquity, the Doric Cretans and Lacedamonians never had a name for their form of government. Aristotle remarks on the confusion of people who categorized it as either a democracy or an oligarchy because the Spartan state was so perfectly blended. 137 Isocrates, in one treatise, called it a mixed government and in another, an oligarchy.

In modern times, no one has delineated the demarcation of "polity" from "democracy" in the history of ancient Athens and so many classicists took "politiea" at Athens to mean a "democratic republic" and Sparta as an "aristocratic republic". Furthering the confusion of the definition of the term republic was the disappearance of many ancient manuscripts, especially Dicaearchus's treatise, the Tripoliticus which was all about Sparta's form of government. It is important to note that Aristotle's Athenian Constitution was lost for two millennium and wasn't recovered until 1890 and Cicero's De republica was lost from the 6th century and only recovered in 1832. These writings weren't available to the major continental Enlightenment thinkers and writers and the American Founding Fathers. This situation led many writers and scholars to wrongly define what the ancients meant by a polity. Furthermore, there are people who are sloppy in their classification of forms of government and none to careful in their reading of the ancient Greeks like Jacques Rousseau who called Sparta a "participatory democracy". 92 Moreover, there was a conscious movement starting in the early modern era for transforming the received classical and Christian cultural heritage by a process of transformation by which a new thinking and a new philosophy would be entertained underneath the appearance of old terms; a tactic called revolution within the form. Paul A. Rahe, in his three volume study, Republics, Ancient and Modern, outlines and examines this alteration. Niccolo Machiavelli, the Father of Modern Republicanism, began the process of modification by retaining the name for appearances sake while substituting the ancient mode for a new philosophy, i.e. humanism. It is Machiavelli who began to define any government without a monarch as a republic. 126 He based this on the Roman historian Livy who was ignorant of political science. (q.v., Machiavelli's Errors.) Along with Michel de Montaigne, Sir Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, these humanists deconstructed the martial ethos, the Indo-European social order (trifunctionality {or as some would say 'caste' system}) and Greek philosophy of the classical republics and instead promoted commercialism, humanism and liberalism. 90 Another republican theorist, an Englishman, James Harrington, furthered the process along when it seems that he also defined all popular governments as republics. 91 Then, the two ideologies, humanism and liberalism fomented the French Revolution with the revolutionaries seeking to become "citizens" and run their own lives by creating a "popular government", gave themselves the title "Republicans".

The agitators of the French Revolution "had taken from Rousseau either at first, or at second or third hand, the doctrine that the General Will is sovereign (ed. note: which is Aristotle's definition of a democracy134) and that man is free but everywhere in chains, equal but everywhere affronted by distinctions of caste (ed. note: whereas the caste system was a central feature of the classical republics134)". 106 Hence, the words "democracy" and "republic" came to be intertwined. Republicanism in the French revolutionary meaning meant self-government with a constitution. In most books this is described as a democratic republic. It can also be described as constitutional democracy. Madison, in the Federalist Paper #39, uses the term "Republican branch" for the democratic "House of Commons". In the nineteenth century the democratic revolutionary forces in France called their parliamentary governments "Republics" because they attended to the General Will as the single determinate of government action. Born out of the French Revolution, socialism, communism and fascism were all mass political movements that sought to implement the General Will and advance egalitarianism; therefore, in the twentieth century, Russian communists (c. 1917-1922), after the Russian Revolution called their government a republic, i.e. the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR); with German communists (c. 1918-1920s), establishing "Räterepubliks" (workers councils) in various cities of the Weimar Republic which itself was modelled along the lines of the American psuedo republic; and with the Spanish leftists (c. 1930s) calling their government a "Republic". Mussolini styled his short-lived fascist state in northern Italy, which existed between 1943 and 1945, the "Italian Social Republic" and even Hitler once referred to the Third Reich as a "republic of the people" (eine völkische Republik), while Goebbels called it a "republican Fuhrer-state". 34 This because they thought themselves the full counterpart of the French Revolution, and executors of the General Will and thus democratic and popular. 63

In addition, in 1937, the state of Nebraska moved to an unicameral parliament despite Article III, sec 4 of the U.S. Constitution. All the experts who testified at congressional hearings stated that this presented no problems. Furthermore, in the remaining states of the Union, the people elect both houses making the bicameral system useless, redundant and nonsensical.

Modern republicanism is no more than democracy under a different name. The republican parties of Europe are just democrats and their anti-monarchialism gives it away. Modern republicanism and democracy are synonymous. Modern republicanism comes under many different titles now: there are "Constitutional republics", "Parlimentary republics", "Presidential republics"; "Unitary republics" (unicameral legislatures); "Federal republics" (quasi autonomous states under a national government); "Confederal republics" (associations of sovereign states); "Arab republics"; "Islamic republics"; "Democratic republics"; "Socialist republics"; and "People's republics".

(For more clarification, see: Classical republics and democracy contrasted.)

Philosophy of mixed government

(Due to length of this article, it is continued in the above blue link. In order to fully comprehend the concept and operation of a classical republic, a reading of the philosophy of mixed government is necessary.)

List of Classical republics

Occurrences of the word republic

Classical Antiquity

  • "The Hill quarter favored democracy, the Plain, oligarchy, and those that lived by the Seaside stood for mixed sort of government, and so hindered either of the other parties from prevailing." 51
  • "...for he (Dion) designed to suppress the unlimited democratic government, which indeed is not a government, but, as Plato calls it, a market-place of governments, and to introduce and establish a mixed polity, on the Spartan and Cretan model, between a commonwealth and a monarchy, wherein an aristocratic body should preside, and determine all matters of greatest consequence;..." 54
  • "For as it is the opinion of philosophers, that could you take away strife and opposition out of the universe, all the heavenly bodies would stand still, generation and motion would cease in the mutual concord and agreement of all things, so the Spartan legislator seems to have admitted ambition and emulation among the ingredients of his commonwealth, as the incentives of virtue, distinctly wishing that there should be some dispute and contention among his men of worth, and pronouncing the mere idle, uncontested, mutual compliance to unproved deserts to be but a false source of concord." 55

Christian Bible

  • "...remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth (Politeias) of Israel,..." New Testament, Eph., 2.12
  • "But our commonwealth (Politeuma) is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,..." New Testament, Phl., 3.20

Renaissance

  • Two principal causes, however, cemented this union: first, the inhabitants of Sparta were few in number...that by not permitting strangers to establish themselves in the republic, (referring to the xenelasia), they had neither opportunity of becoming corrupt..." ~ Niccolo Machiavelli 66

Colonial American literature and later

  • "Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics; two of them, Athens and Carthage, of the commercial kind. ~ Alexander Hamilton 47
  • "It was a fundamental maxim of the Lacedæmonian commonwealth that the post of admiral should not be conferred twice on the same person." 48
  • "So far are the suggestions of Montesquieu from standing in opposition to a general Union of the States that he explicitly treats of a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC as the expedient for extending the sphere of popular government and reconciling the advantages of monarchy with those of republicanism". 49
  • "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands,..." Pledge of Allegiance of America

Modern scholarly works

  • "Polybius' theme is the imperium Romanum in expansion, and on it he sets the seal of Greek approval when he declares it to be the result, not of chance, but of manifest destiny working through the agency of her chosen people; adding, in characteristic fashion, that the success of the Romans is to be ascribed to the advantages of the 'mixed form' at the time fashionable in Greek political philosophy." ~ Charles Norris Cochrane 50
  • "The histories of ancient Greece published at that period, though encapsulating a great deal of truthful historical data, were intended to provide an antidote to political liberalism, whilst pledging the encomium of the harmonious British mixed constitution." ~ Kyriakos N. Demetriou 53
  • "While Gordon Wood continues to emphasize the emergence of liberalism in post-Revolutionary American society in The Radicalism of the American Revolution, he also demonstrates the persistence of classical republican values, particularly among the founders' generation and aristocratic class." ~ Prof. Carl J. Richard 86
  • "In a piece of high presbyterian cant that long was remembered, Cartwright wrote that the civil constitution ought to match the ecclesiastical, "even as the hangings to the house"...the architect had cribbed his plans from the decorator: he had built according to the classical-republican theory of mixed government." ~ Prof. Michael Mendle 68
  • "The recognition that the unleashing of the commercial instinct would undermine the moral foundations of classical republicanism by destroying every vestige of martial spirit did not provoke consternation in all circles". ~ Paul A. Rahe 88

Occurrences of the word under the shift in meaning

(In the senses used below, it can be seen that the word "republic" means democracy.)

  • "The constitution of 1793 was a radical instrument providing not only for a republic, but for an ultra-democratic governmental system, whose principle features were: (1) a unicameral legislature...(2) an executive council...(3) the reference of proposed laws to primary assemblies of citizens for definitive action." 98
  • "Radical reform to the Philosophic Radicals meant not merely the reform of the representative system, but the abolition of England's ancient and most cherished institutions, the monarchy and the House of Lords. Bentham was an outspoken republican and an enthusiastic admirer of the American constitution." 95
  • "From the republicans he would take the principle of popular sovereignty, by maintaining manhood suffrage." 96
  • "After the solemn republican respectability of 1848 it seemed that only with the Napoleanic experiment did a great revolutionary elan appear on the stage of history". 97
  • "It would have to make a powerful appeal for national unity, in order to face the grave problems that arose as a consequence of the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. Would a democratic republic close the chasm that, for so long, divided the two Frances? Out of these necessities was born the Third French Republic." 94
  • "Outraged at the brutalities of the Republicans, aided by the Russians, in the Spanish Civil War, he (Jesuit Enrico Rosa) deplored the fact that hundreds of the clergy had been murdered; religious buildings had been burned; nuns raped; priests mutilated." 46
  • "As the Cambridge scholar Quentin Skinner has written: 'The reason for wishing to bring the republican vision of politics back into view is not that it tells us how to construct a genuine democracy, one in which the government is for the people as a result of being by the people'." 133
Reverse switch

Below is an example where the modern definition of republic is transported back into history and a once classical republic is noted as a democracy. These are examples of either Historical revisionism (negationism) or just an example of modern historians just like their counterparts in classical antiquity being unconversant with political science.

  • "For in the panicky aftermath of the attack (refering to a pirate attack on the Roman port of Ostia in the autumn of 68 B.C.), the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty." 120
  • "Sparta was the first democracy in recorded history, possibly predating Athenian democracy by more than 200 years." 123
  • "On its own, the precise synchronism between the beginning of the Roman democracy and the beginning of the Athenian, even with the conscientious Polybius backing up Dionysius, looks suspiciously like a Roman attempt to prove that they were just as good as the Greeks." 129
  • "Rome was, and still is a great example of a democratic regime, which aspired to put liberty at the top of its concerns." 132

(Here, classical republicanism is noted as a democracy.)

  • "Unlike the framers of America's constitution, classical republicans like Montesquieu believed that true democracy was possible only in small republics." 131
    • "Drawing apparently upon the emphasis in classical republicanism on the suitability of small republics for achieving democracy, Benedict boldly predicted in 1841 that Libera's independence would bring "a purer form of government than any now to be found, even in the United States."" 131

Quotes

  • Apparently Americans outside of the convention shared the impression that they were getting a quasi monarchy. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." 35 (a reference to the Kyklos.)
  • Thomas Jefferson, at his first inaugural address as President, said: "We are all Federalists, we are all Republicans". 81

Miscellanea

  • Socrates looked to Crete and Sparta as models of good government.119
  • Aristotle remarks that this system that separated a warrior class from the agrarian class, the basic ingredient of classical republicanism, was also established in Egypt by Sesostris. 108 The Hebrew government can be said to be a republic due to its mixed character. Maybe Moses, being raised as a pharaoh's son, transferred elements of mixed government, such as the establishment of a body of counselors to the Hebrews. (see The Hebrew Republic)
  • Four states in the United States of America are not called states but commonwealths. They are Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Kentucky.
  • Plato titled his work, The Republic, "ΠΟΛΙΤΕΙΑ" and the Romans translated this word as "Republic". This is not misleading. Not only is the proposed society structured in the Indo-European tripartite form of guardians (statesmen), warriors, and working men; but there are also many other similarities to the Lacedæmonian government. 67
    • The Indo-European trifunctionality is expressed in Greek educational philosophy which always considered forming the "whole man"; the tripartite form of man; the spiritual, the mental and the physical parts. In The Republic, Socrates brings this to play on the training of the philosopher. This is encapsulated in the last part of the Boy Scout Oath, "...to be physically fit, mentally awake, and morally straight".
  • A correlation to seeing mixed government as a ballast of a ship of Plutarch is Sir Thomas Aston defense of the lords-spiritual estate (c. 1641): "The bishops, Aston claimed, have been the "ballast which have poised the barks of monarchy, to sail safely in the sea of the vulgar,...the medium 'twixt tyranny and anarchy". 69

See also

External Links

Notes

† Aristotle's work Politics was translated into Latin c. 1250 A.D. Also in this same century did Venice and England move to esablish mixed government. Is there a correlation?

References

(Due to the length of this article, the references are on a seperate page. Click on the above blue link "References" to read them.)

Bibliography

(Due to the length of this article, the bibliography is on a seperate page. Click on the blue link above that says "Bibliography" to read it.)

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