The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment

I think politics, like other team sports, is an interesting subject. I find anything that OTHER people find interesting to be interesting because large numbers of other people find that thing interesting. The interest of other people is interesting to me. That's the way it is for me and politics. I went to college in Washington DC but was turned off by that, but I still pay attention even if I want nothing to do with it. I find debates over issues to be the most interesting thing our society does: illegal immigration, health care- it's amazing to me about how passionate people get. It's almost like a mental disorder, but it's very human, very passionate. References to Greek and Roman thought are pretty scarce in the debate over illegal immigration and health care, but back in the day they were central to pretty much any debate you wanted to have about the future of America. Everyone was terrified of Roman Emperors, everyone though the British King was a tyrant, people compared the American government to the Roman Republic and Greek city states: Every day. That's because back then getting an "education" was equivalent to "learning greek and latin" in school. In fact, that was pretty much it in the 1780s. Either you had time and money to learn a pair of dead languages, or you were our working. This book takes aim at statements by other historians that the classical influence was either dead or dying in the early post-Revolution period. Specifically, he demonstrates how concentrated efforts by luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin and Mr. Rush to strip education of Greek and Latin language instruction FAILED. Thus, he demonstrates that this way of thought had a tenacious hold on American political elites into the beginning of the 19th century.

It is almost universally acclaimed that the political and judicial wisdom of the Founding Fathers in the construction of the U.S. Constitution is truly phenomenal. A big reason why is that they were well educated (many self educated) in the reading of the classics from the Greek and Roman eras of republican power and representative government. They took their advice and avoided their mistakes as history unfolded. This book is of vital importance in understanding the foundations of our government as conceived by these men. At the same time it is an excellent summary of the classics themselves, which serves as an education in itself, and hopefully stimulates the reader to explore the classics more - many of which are not easy reading, but nevertheless profound and interesting. If every child in high school read this book our society would be improved immensely even though the ideas rendered from the readings would vary vastly.

Carl Richard writes that the college-educated colonists received a heavy dose of the Greek and Roman classics. This classical education would make it easy for them to assimilate into their own character the virtues embodied in Cato the Younger. Many of these men, such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, and others, would quote from the play in many of their writings and speeches. Richard asserts that in the years leading up to the American Revolution, and especially after the Stamp Act crisis in 1765, the play "Cato" served as the epitome of resistance to tyrannical British rule for many colonists. It is indicative of the Age of Enlightenment, which educated leaders such as America's Founding Fathers, to select their models of heroic virtue from Greco-Roman history instead of from the Bible. Plays, such as Addison's "Cato" social and philosophical message was clear to any Enlightenment audience because it was Roman moral virtues and not Christian morality that Enlightenment audiences most embraced. Cato's self-reliance caused his actions; not his reliance on God. This notion of men acting outside the sphere of religious bonds was an important lesson that was certainly not lost on our Founders, especially since many of them were such devoted disciples to Enlightenment ideals. In fact, one could stipulate that "Cato" is part of a genre of plays that replaced the Christian morality plays that had been so popular for centuries in Europe. The revolutionary generation immersed themselves in the classics, which enabled them to be on the look out for examples of distant tyrannical rule. The Founding Fathers believed that in order for a new nation to survive as a republic, they would need to remake men in the mold of Cato as portrayed in Addison's play, and as other heroic men found in "Plutarch's Lives." Cato was first and foremost a patriot. He would not have sullied himself by becoming embroiled in party politics. Thus, the Founders learned from his example and understood that they too had to be especially diligent in guarding against men forming political factions and the misuse of political power for their own self-interest. This is why Founders, such as Thomas Jefferson, placed such high hopes for raising a virtuous body of citizens through education, which became one of his motivating factors for founding the University of Virginia. Aside from Addison's flowery prose and powerful imagery on stage, "Cato's" most important and enduring role in the American colonies was its political message; fighting to the death, if necessary, for freedom from tyranny. I read this book for a graduate Humanities class. Recommended for people interested in literature, history, philosophy, and the founding of America.

Richards asserts through this book that the "classics," being the ancient Greco-Roman historical/literary tradition, were the primary influence upon the American Founders through their education and socialization. The Founders' theories of government, their views on human nature, nature, and virtue, were all classical in essence and origin. The classical education of these great men gave them the impetus for the American Revolution, models and anti-models for the creation of the Constitution, and heavily influenced the overall worldview of the Founders despite the discrepancies and disagreements amongst themselves towards the classics. Carl J. Richard is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, and a scholar of American Intellectual history. The purpose of this pioneering work was to spread more light on the educational and philosophical influences upon the historically important personages of the late colonial, revolutionary and early republican periods of American history. Richard's arsenal of evidence includes the private and public correspondence of early American educators and the Founders, the records of the Federal Constitutional Convention and of the state ratifying conventions, the published writings of the Founders, and historical works by later American historians of the early American time period. Richards addresses his evidence critically and openly, and presents compelling arguments for his thesis. Classical education produced men of intellect and virtue by instilling in the young the character traits of critical thinking, a love for liberty (and subsequently a fear of tyranny), a sense of civic duty and pride, and by presenting them with models of morality. Besides, an intimate knowledge of the ancients could elevate one into the "natural aristocracy" of early American public life. Richard's discussion of the use of classical symbols by the Founders to legitimate their arguments in the eyes of the public and of their peers is excellent. Hamilton, for example, not only used the names of classical heroes for his pseudonyms, as most of the Founders did, but chose names of men whose challenges and situations uncannily mirrored his own. Richards also presents how influential and important classical models and anti-models for government were to the debates and deliberations at the federal and state constitutional conventions. Whilst a few dared to question the validity of the classical canon and its applicability to the American experiment at all, the majority of both Federalists and Anti-Federalists invoked the authority of the classics to legitimate and substantiate their arguments and viewpoints. The philosophy and religious views of the Founders were also a unique blend of classical philosophy, primitive Christianity, and the religious skepticism of the Enlightenment. The Founders reliance upon "reason," our divinely granted innate ability to sort out truth from falsehood, was also a cla

Makes clear how the "framers' intent" can only be understood through the dense network of classical allusions in which they expressed their ideas and from which they took most of them. A beautiful example of how the "framers' intent" is inaccessible to us and not something we should want to emulate anyway.