Member-only story
Republican Government Requires Virtue
Which is why we’re in trouble today
Listen, the framers of the Constitution weren’t Pollyannas. They understood that people could and would be immoral. Living in a world much crueler and more capricious than our own, they risked their lives to rebel against a monarch descending into madness.
In fact, they built their system of government to counteract and limit the natural human impulse toward evil. The author of Federalist #51 (probably James Madison) wrote that a good system of government must take advantage of our selfish lusting after power:
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
But they also understood that the American system of government wouldn’t work if everyone involved was a selfish jerk and content to be viewed as such. The framers repeatedly spoke of the need for virtue in government and the need to be watchful for its…
