Abstract: On or about the Ides of every month except March, the Adams Institute will send two letters to prominent Americans whose words or actions are relevant to the proposed amendment, and whose contributions to the idea of democratic-republican government merit all of our attention. These letters will also carbon-copy other distinguished individuals who were somehow involved in the recipient’s words or deeds, or in our analysis thereof.
Our initial letters, along with correspondence explaining to copied individuals why they were copied, will be published as an open diary of correspondence in the hopes of inspiring discussion of our proposed amendment and emulation of the recipients’ good examples. PDF files featuring scans of all this original correspondence will be available for download, and the substantive content of each primary letter will be pasted in blog-post format.
May 15, 2024
Dear Ms. Cheney:
In giving your account of January 6, you cited George Washington’s voluntary relinquishment of power as “one of the highest moral lessons ever given to the world.” But though you quoted John Trumbull’s words,[1] you omitted the story behind them. Trumbull said them to President James Madison. Congress had just commissioned Trumbull to execute four paintings in the national Capitol celebrating the foundation of our republic. The choice of subjects was left to Madison, who summoned Trumbull to the White House to discuss the matter. Upon briefly considering Trumbull’s words above, Madison, Father of the Constitution and a devout student of history, replied: “I believe you are right; it was a glorious action,” and approved Trumbull to commemorate it in the painting that now graces the Capitol Rotunda.[2]
We can be sure that in his moment of pause, the contrast between Washington and a short list of others who once commanded the destiny of republics flashed before Madison’s eyes: Sulla. Napoleon. Cromwell. Caesar. And from his writings – displaying a vast knowledge of the life and death of popular states – we can be equally confident that while Washington’s emulation of Cincinnatus was indeed glorious, Madison would tell us today: the greatest moral lessons of history are found not in the beginnings of republics, but in their end.
Though you invoked the memory of our republic’s founding, your award speech was in truth a clarion call rallying against its end. Describing the scene in the Capitol Rotunda on the night of January 6 – SWAT teams armed with rifles lining the wall under Trumbull’s painting, “some resting from battle, others standing watch” – you told a story much more urgent than of the pedigree of a painting of the Father of our Country. You told the story of how every President had dutifully followed his example in the peaceful transfer of power to their successor under the Constitution. Every President, that is, except one.
We share your apprehension about our republic’s future. But whereas you’ve spoken on the peaceful transfer of power in adherence to the republican form, we write to you today on the concentration of power and the preservation of the republican substance. In your speech, you mentioned Clio, the ancient Greek Muse of History, riding in the Chariot of Time, book in hand, taking notes, “reminding all of us that our deeds are inscribed in the pages of history.” Given that you, like Madison and Kennedy, are guided by history, we ask you to take a few moments to reflect on a few of Clio’s notes on the republican model of government:
These lessons were encapsulated most clearly not by George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, or even John Adams, but by Noah Webster. None described with greater exactitude that superpower republics are destroyed from within.[9] And despite the Founders’ wisdom, and the institution of slavery, the principal fact of America’s founding is that America was born middle class.[10] The Founders understood it was this that enabled them to establish America as a republic in an age of aristocracy.[11] This is why the Founding Fathers advocated government intervention as necessary to keep it that way.[12]
You’ve said that “the future of the country demands that we save the republic.” Clio’s notes above show this requires more than the civility and decorum of elected officials. As much as the division of power within the Constitution, the republican model of government depends upon a diffusion of power among the body politic. And as much as obedience to the Constitution, a republic depends upon the middling virtues of modesty, industry, honesty, and independence. It is these virtues – not veneration of ancient parchments – that immunize the people from the insecurity, dependency, patronage, and demagoguery that have set us upon our authoritarian political trajectory. Both the diffusion of power and the middling virtues rely upon the economic independence, security, and confidence of the people. Whether in Iraq or America, authentic democracy cannot endure without a broad middle class.
The Founders may find today’s politicians devoid of merit, but they’d be more worried about the extreme wealth concentration that fuels demagoguery than the demagogues themselves: A man is far more easily restrained than a middle class created or the middling virtues cultivated. From the standpoint of wealth concentration, it’s fair to say that America now more closely resembles the stratified aristocracies our Founders repudiated than the hopeful egalitarian republic they established. Startling as that is, however, the better comparison for our superpower republic is to the other superpower republic achieving global hegemony – similar to that which we attained after the Second World War: Rome after the Third Punic War.[13] The rapid dissolution of Rome’s republican constitution teaches how swiftly a ruined middle class is drawn to “seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual” as George Washington warned. It also shows that once the tournament of demagogues begins, no artful arrangement of political power can contain it. If your plan is merely to eliminate Caesar – but not the insecurity and patronage which summoned him – we shall all hail Augustus soon enough.
In the final analysis, the diagnosis and cure of the disease are simple. The intuition of ordinary Americans agrees with the insight of philosophers: The middle class should own half.[14] Our authoritarianism intensifies as the gap between the ideal and reality grows. The advent of mob rule in America is easily explained by the fact that ordinary Americans have, over the past fifty years, been deprived of at least $50 trillion of income[15] and $30 trillion of wealth.[16] While we have a market-oriented plan that our Founders would approve to restore the middle class,[17] we won’t pitch it here. All we ask is that in your fight to preserve our republic, you remember a truth that Madison would tell you if he were here today: the Constitution is powerless to preserve the legal form of our republic once the middling political substance is lost.
Sincerely,
Tim Ferguson
[1] In accepting your 2022 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award® from the Kennedy library.
[2] Autobiography, reminiscences and letters of John Trumbull, from 1756-1841.
[3] (i.e. Anacyclosis (ἀνακύκλωσις), the idea that the natural and probable sequence of political evolution is tribal chiefdom, monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and ochlocracy or mob-rule) (For the anthropology see, e.g., Pindar, 2nd Pythian Ode, Herodotus (III. 80), Thucydides (VIII. 97), Plato (Rep. VIII) (Laws, III. 676 A), Aristotle (Nic. Eth. 8.10; Pol. 1286b), Polybius (Hist. Bk. VI), and possibly Panaetius, Dicaercus, Isocrates, Protagoras, and Hecateus). See also Dionysius, (Rom. Ant. VII, 54-56) Cicero, De Re Publica, I, XXIX, II, XXV), Sextus Pomponius, Justinian’s Digest, I Bk. I, Tit. 2., 2. 1-11), Machiavelli Discourses on Livy, Ch. I. Bk. II. See also John Adams, An Essay on Man’s Lust for Power, All Men would be Tyrants if they could, with the Author’s Comment in 1807 (describing Polybius’ sequence as “the Creed of my whole Life. See also Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 9, alluding to Anacyclosis. See also David A. Teegarden, Death to Tyrants!: Ancient Greek Democracy and the Struggle against Tyranny, Princeton University Press, 2014. Figure A1 therein shows that ancient Greek city-state regimes peaked accordingly.
[4] The idea is attributed to the legendary Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus. For the anthropology, see, e.g. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 8.97.2 Plato, Laws, 681d; Laws, 712d; Menexus, 238b-d, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, VII.55, Polybius, Histories, VI.10-18, and Servius the Grammarian, Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil, 4.682. See also Charles I, His Majesties Answer to the Nineteen Propositions of Both Houses of Parliament, 1642, Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Book XI, Chapter VI, John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Book II, Chapters XII-XIII James Madison, Federalist Nos. 47, 48, and 51, and Articles I, II, and III of the United States Constitution.
[5] See James Harrington, Commonwealth of Oceana, Part I, John Adams to James Sullivan, 26 May 1776 and Defence of the Constitutions, Vol. III, Letter III (Padoua), Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, and Misc. Remarks on Divisions of Property.
[6] See Euripides, Suppliants, Line 238 et seq., Plato, Laws 679b, Aristotle, Pol., 1291b, 1295b, and Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. See James Madison, Federalist No. 10: “The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.” See also Aristotle, Pol., 1291b, 1295b. See also Tocqueville, Id. To summarize: where the middle class prevails, the people are too busy for demagogues, too optimistic for faction, too traditional for radical ideas, too independent for patronage, and too moderate for extremism.
[7] On how extreme wealth concentration destroyed the Roman republic, which is history’s closest analogy, see Appian, The Civil Wars, I.1, Sallust, Conspiracy of Catiline, 10, 33. I; 37.3, 38, 53, The Jugurthine War, 4, Livy, History of Rome, Preface, Tacitus, Annals, 3.27, Florus, Epitome, I, XLVII, Lucan, Pharsalia, 1.63. Marcus Philippus said in 104BC that out of perhaps 400,000 citizens, only around 2,000 held any significant wealth.
[8] See Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, Princeton 2018. Shows that structural inequality has only been reduced by the shocks of plague, revolution, mass-mobilization warfare, or state collapse.
[9] Noah Webster, Miscellaneous Remarks, 1790: The causes which destroyed the ancient republics were numerous; but in Rome, one principal cause was the vast inequality of fortunes … . Rome, with the name of a republic, was several ages losing the spirit and principle. The Gracchi endeavored to check the growing evil by an agrarian law but were not successful. In Caesar’s time, the Romans were ripened for a change of government; the spirit of a commonwealth was lost, and Caesar was but an instrument of altering the form when it could no longer exist. Caesar is execrated as the tyrant of his country; and Brutus, who stabbed him, is applauded as a Roman. But such was the state of things in Rome, that Caesar was a better ruler than Brutus would have been; for when the spirit of a government is lost, the form must change.” Edited for modern spelling and punctuation.
[10] See remarks from British Colonel Lord Adam Gordon in 1764: “The levelling principle here, everywhere operates strongly and takes the lead, and everybody has property here, and everybody knows it.” See also Tocqueville, Id. And Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson, American Incomes 1774-1860, NBER 18396, 2012, showing that in 1774, New England and the Middle Colonies were the most egalitarian place in the measurable world.
[11] See a letter from George Washington to Richard Henderson, 19 June 1788, celebrating: “…the equal distribution of property the great plenty of unoccupied lands, and the facility of procuring the means of subsistence.” See also Mercy Otis Warren, History of … the American Revolution, 1805 Vol. I. Ch. I.: “Democratic principles are the result of Equality of condition.”
[12] See John Adams, Dissertation, 1765: “Property monopolized, or in the Possession of a Few is a Curse to Mankind. We should preserve not an Absolute Equality – this is unnecessary, but preserve all from extreme Poverty, and all others from extravagant Riches,” Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 28 October 1785: “Legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,” James Madison, Parties, 1792, advocating measures to “reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort” and Noah Webster, Id., 1790: “The basis of a democratic and a republican form of government, is, a fundamental law, favoring … a general distribution of property.”
[13] See Victor Duruy, Histoire des Romains, II, 46-47, 1879 (quoted by A. Stephenson, Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic, 1891) “After having pillaged the world as praetors or consuls during time of war, the nobles again pillaged their subjects as governors in time of peace; and upon their return to Rome with immense riches they employed them in changing the modest heritage of their fathers into domains vast as provinces.”
[14] See Aristotle, Pol., 1295b, and James Harrington, Id., advocating wealth caps to balance the nobility with the commoners. That the intuition of ordinary Americans believes the middle should own half, see Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely, Building a Better America – One Wealth Quintile at a Time, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Association for Psychological Science, 2011.
[15] Price, Carter C. and Kathryn A. Edwards, Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2020. Calculates that through 2018, $47 trillion had been diverted from ordinary households relative to post-World War II run rates.
[16] Q2 2023 Federal Reserve data shows that total U.S. household wealth is ~$150 trillion and the middling share is: (a) 28.1%, when defined as middle three asset quintiles by income; and (b) 28.6% when defined as the “middle 40%” (between the top 10% and bottom 50%), averaging 28.35%. This shows that the middling share is at least $30 trillion less than it would be if the middling share were at least 50%.
[17] Median-top household net worth tethering at an efficient mathematical ratio, such that the top households having market power enjoy future gains only in proportion to median gains, rising and falling lockstep with the national median, thus scaling capitalism’s own device of the long-term incentive plan from the level of enterprise to nation. The initial ratio would be 10,000:1 (implying a $1.43 billion cap); existing fortunes would be grandfathered to the extent repatriated to the United States.100% of the revenues would be distributed to the States, inducing ratification and strengthening federalism.
Property monopolized, or in the Possession of a Few is a Curse to Mankind. We should preserve not an Absolute Equality – this is unnecessary, but preserve all from extreme Poverty, and all others from extravagant Riches.
© 2024 John Adams Institute. All rights reserved. The John Adams Institute, operating as the Adams Institute for the Preservation of the Democratic-Republican Model of Government, is not a government organization or affiliated with any government organization. We do not endorse or oppose any specific candidates for public office. This website is not a government website. No statement or suggestion of government endorsement is intended or should be inferred. No endorsement of any of our ideas or activities by any person referenced on this website is intended or should be inferred unless otherwise explicitly stated. The John Adams Institute is a nonprofit corporation, is not a tax-exempt organization, and does not engage in commercial activities. No communication on this website is intended as a lobbying communication or as a solicitation for financial support but is only intended to stimulate intelligent public discourse. For full legal terms and disclaimers, visit our Legal page.
© 2024 John Adams Institute. All rights reserved. The John Adams Institute, operating as the Adams Institute for the Preservation of the Democratic-Republican Model of Government, is not a government organization or affiliated with any government organization. We do not endorse or oppose any specific candidates for public office. This website is not a government website. No statement or suggestion of government endorsement is intended or should be inferred. No endorsement of any of our ideas or activities by any person referenced on this website is intended or should be inferred unless otherwise explicitly stated. The John Adams Institute is a nonprofit corporation, is not a tax-exempt organization, and does not engage in commercial activities. No communication on this website is intended as a lobbying communication or as a solicitation for financial support but is only intended to stimulate intelligent public discourse. For full legal terms and disclaimers, visit our Legal page.
