Observations on the New Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions, Part IX: Character, contd.

Perhaps the most obvious political characteristic that Mercy Otis Warren displayed within the text of Observations was a strong affinity for the ideals of 18^th-century republicanism. For those who are unfamiliar with the phrase, and who have perhaps not taken the opportunity to peruse the discussion of George Washington’s Farewell Address that was featured in this series so very many moons ago, a brief explanation is doubtless in order. Republicanism in the 18^th century was most often an outgrowth of elite scholarly reverence for the literature, philosophy, and history of antiquity. The Greek city-states of the ancient world, along with the Roman Republic, were viewed by many social and political reformers as models fit for emulation because the values these societies seemed to embrace appeared to represent a virtuous, stable, and pragmatic alternative to the corruption and sectarian strife often attributed to contemporary European governments. Generally speaking these ancient states were organized along republican lines, whereby responsibility for governing was distributed among a variety of different offices, most of which were subject to regular election. These states accordingly promoted certain social values in an effort to encourage transparent and stable governance. These included, but were not limited to, reverence for public service, personal and collective virtue, and decentralised administration. Self-sacrifice was also characterised as a republican value, whereby members of the most privileged social orders within a state were under the strongest obligation to place their wealth and education at the service of the public good. Classical Republicanism, as it is often now described, was at the core of many 17^th and 18^th century European reform ideologies, including those embraced by English social and political dissenters and commentators like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, members of the Whig Country Party like Lord Bolingbroke, and playwright Joseph Addison. 

           

As referenced above (and more extensively in weeks past *hint hint*), George Washington was a noted devotee and promoter of classical republican principles. His Farewell Address groans under the weight of the man’s forbearance, selfless devotion to public service, and dedication to virtue in civic life. Clearly the republican values embraced by certain English thinkers found an audience among the educated elite of the American colonies as well – Addison’s Cato, a Tragedy, as I’m so fond of repeating, was Washington’s favorite play. Observations, written by Mercy Otis Warren and published in the early spring of 1788, provides further evidence of the enthusiasm with which certain members of the Founding Generation embraced republican values as a standard by which to shape and to measure the public affairs of their own emerging nation. Warren’s particular republican affinity manifested itself in Observations by the expression of a variety of different positions on the nature of political power, the proper arrangement of a republican government, and the values she believed a republican society ought to embrace and promote. Also informative was her use of a specific allusion to a section of the Old Testament. This same passage had been referenced by radical English polemicist Thomas Paine in his 1776 pro-independence pamphlet Common Sense. Whether this was purposeful or coincidental, it seems likely that Warren’s perception of the political pitfalls her countrymen faced was not so far removed from the ideological plateau occupied by one of the 18^th century’s most ardent, and radical, republicans.

As aforementioned, one of the values commonly embraced by classical republican ideology was a reverence for public service and self-sacrifice. In a republic, it was held, the interests of the individual must be understood to coincide with the interests of the general population, thereby ensuring that citizens would feel compelled to engage in acts of public service up to and including taking on the responsibilities of public office. Rather than represent an opportunity for personal enrichment, then, legislative, executive, judicial, or even military positions would be seen as opportunities for the individual to contribute to the greater good in which they share, even if it required them to sacrifice a portion of their comfort, wealth, or energy. Warren spoke to this ideal in section one of Observations. “Every uncorrupted American yet hopes,” she wrote,

To see [their nation’s freedom] supported by the vigour, the justice, the wisdom and unanimity of the people, in spite of the deep-laid plots, the secret intrigues, or the bold effrontery of those interested and avaricious adventurers for place, who intoxicated with the ideas of distinction and preferment have prostrated every worthy principle beneath the shrine of ambition.”

Warren’s disdain for the “avaricious” office-seeker, who feigns concern for the public good while seeking only to improve their situation, is clear enough. The 18^th-century association of “interest” with corruption and greed has been discussed in weeks past, and here it is deployed once more in its negative sense alongside “preferment” and “distinction.” Whereas a monarchical society, like 18^th century Britain, might have embraced the existence of titles and honors (knighthoods, peerages, or post-nominals like QC or OBE) as a means of encouraging service to the realm, Warren hoped that republican America would instead endorse service in pursuit of higher goals like the preservation and promotion of liberty and justice. Yet she also perceived in the United States of the 1780s the existence of men who evidently had little use for such abstract rewards. It was they who most ardently supported the adoption of a more centralised system of government, she asserted, who claimed that, “Republicanism is dwindled into theory,” and who needed to be opposed by an even stronger dedication to republican principles.      

            Indeed, it was the actions and sentiments of these men, real or perceived, which seemed principally to raise Warren’s ire. Though she failed to provide any specific examples of the insincere and vainglorious persons she was actively denouncing – an admission, perhaps, to 18^th century pretensions of gentility and discretion – she questioned where the supporters of the proposed constitution had been during the years of the Revolutionary War. In light of the deep significance Warren attached to that conflict, and the desire she displayed to honor the sacrifices of its American participants, it is perhaps not surprising that she perceived the war as a kind of yardstick by which to measure the virtue of her countrymen and the nation they shared. “Were not some of them hidden in the corners of obscurity,” she accordingly wrote of the proposed constitution’s most ardent supporters, “And others speculating for fortune, by sporting with public money [.]” Through these criticisms it is fairly easy to infer Warren’s decidedly republican temperament. By accusing certain among the supporters of the new federal charter of hiding during the Revolutionary War “in the corners of obscurity” she rather clearly demonstrated her own belief in the primacy of public service. When these men took refuge from the conflict between Britain and its rebellious colonies, out of cowardice or whatever motive, they abandoned any regard for the public good. While this may seem a rather harsh response on Warren’s part – berating men for attempting to avoid a bloody war – the fact that she felt the need to call attention to it would seem a fairly clear indication of her strong feelings on the matter.

            Similarly definitive was her criticism of those who, while others were risking their lives from one day to the next, were “speculating for fortune, by sporting with public money [.]” This was almost certainly intended to reference some of the financiers of the Revolution, the bankers, investors, and merchants who enriched themselves by exploiting the needs of the war effort to turn a profit on bonds, supplies, and various other commodities. No doubt Alexander Hamilton, 1^st Secretary of the Treasury, or Robert Morris, Superintendent of Finance during the Revolutionary War, would have argued that such men were necessary to the ultimate victory of the United States because of the way they facilitated the movement of currency, and made it possible for the Continental Congress to raise the sums it needed to fund the war. Warren would surely have disagreed, however valid a point this might have been; speculation, as the context of Observations makes clear, was in her mind a disreputable pursuit. She was certainly not alone in this; Thomas Jefferson frequently evinced a categorical disdain for those who “played the market,” and public disagreements in the 1790s between those who supported the creation of a national bank and those who rejected the very idea often pivoted on the relative evil or utility of facilitating financial speculation. Of particular significance, however, is Warren’s inclusion of the phrase “sporting with public money.” Here her dislike for reckless commodity trading took on a distinctly republican aspect. Most likely the root of her objection lay in the fact that, beyond attempting to profit by exploiting the work of actual producers and manipulating prices to meet their own ends, those who speculated with public money were guilty of appropriating funds that belonged to the community at large. If a transaction thus funded were to have failed, therefore, the facilitator would have lost a sum of money that was not theirs to risk, harming the economic prospects of the general public and lessening the ability of government to accomplish the ends for which it was created. By calling attention in Observations to the presence of such speculators among the supporters of the proposed constitution, Warren therefore also made clear the contempt she felt for those who would dare risk the public good in attempting to enrich themselves.     

                

            Mercy Otis Warren’s manifest concern for the public good was further elaborated upon in section nine of Observations, joined this time by an exhortation for supporters of the proposed federal charter to embrace a measure of self-sacrifice in their formulation of a new government for the United States. What specifically raised her bile and elicited commentary was the lack she perceived in the Constitution for the rotation of federal offices. There was not, she argued, “Anything to prevent the perpetuity of office in the same hands for life; which by a little well timed bribery, will probably be done [.]” Such an eventuality was bad enough, essentially placing power in the hands of a self-selecting pseudo-aristocracy. Worse yet, Warren contended, was the manner in which allowing men to run for and be elected to the same office without limit would cause the American people to, “Lose the advantage of that check to the overbearing insolence of office, which by rendering him ineligible at certain periods, keeps the mind of man in quilibrio, and teaches him the feelings of the governed, and better qualifies him to govern in his turn.” Within these statements Warren once again revealed a philosophical outlook that was strongly republican, and drew upon precedents native to America and distant antiquity.

            As aforementioned, at the core of 18^th century republican ideology was a reverence for the politics and philosophy of the Roman Republic and the democracies of Ancient Greece. The former in particular, with its Cato the Younger and Marcus Tullius Cicero, was a source of inspiration for those seeking exemplars of public virtue and resistance to corruption, and it was in the unwritten constitution of the Roman Republic that the need for a rotation of offices was most strongly expressed in the ancient world. While to the uninitiated the government of republican Rome can seem like a chaotic tangle of executive, military and legislative posts and jurisdictions, it was considered by the Romans themselves, and by later commentators, to be a model of balance and an efficient facilitator of individual public service. Though appointment to the Roman Senate was for life, the many magistrates that made up the executive branch of government were term limited and subject to election. Among these were the Military Tribunes, Quaestors, and Aediles (elected by the Tribal Assembly), and the Praetors, Consuls, and Censors (elected by the Century Assembly). Each of these offices enjoyed a one year term, fulfilled a specific role within the government of the republic, possessed minimum age requirements (i.e. one had to be at least 42 to be elected Consul), and could veto the edicts of the officials below them in precedence. After having served in any of these offices, a person could not by law be eligible for re-election to the same office until fully 10 years had elapsed. The purpose of such a measure was, in theory, to circulate authority amongst as large a group as possible (within the established social orders) so as to prevent endemic corruption.

In spite of its apparent reliance on frequent elections, however, Roman republicanism was not particularly democratic. The franchise was generally restricted to the various legislative councils, and citizens within those councils restricted in who they could vote for based on their social status (be it Plebian or Patrician). It also bears mentioning that the imposition of term limits on elective offices was ultimately incapable of staving off the rise of venality in Rome that arguably led to the downfall of the republic. That being said, and as the reverence of figures like Cato and Cicero indicates, there did seem to be a redemptive quality to 18^th century republican thought. Though Rome did eventually succumb to corruption, civil war, and tyranny, followed by a centuries-long period of authoritarian rule punctuated by occasional bursts of administrative chaos, Enlightenment reformers and supporters of classical republicanism seemed to hold that the principles embodied in the ancient Roman constitution were worth attempting to rejuvenate. Idealistic though this effort no doubt was, the fact of it does explain how a concept like term limits became a key characteristic of the reforms and new models of government proposed and promoted by devotees of republicanism in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

This is about where America re-enters the conversation. As previously discussed, a sizable proportion of the 18^th century American colonial elite were the beneficiaries of a classical education. Among the subjects in which they received instruction, including logic and rhetoric, was the study of the literature, politics, and history of the ancient world. Republican Rome loomed large in this curriculum, and so many members of the Founding Generation were quite familiar with the works of that civilization’s great statesmen and philosophers, and through them imbibed an appreciation for the particular virtues and principles that the ancient Romans ascribed to their political culture. When it came time, in the late 1770s following the declaration of American independence, for the various states to draft constitutions to replace their colonial charters, the opportunity to express and embody this appreciation was accordingly, and quite widely, seized upon. The imposition of term limits on elected offices was one of the most obvious signifiers of American elite’s abiding classicism, and they appeared quite frequently in the resulting documents.

The Constitution of Pennsylvania, for instance, decreed that a person could serve in the unicameral General Assembly for only four out of seven years. In addition, the Supreme Executive Council, from which the President and Vice President of the state were drawn, was composed of twelve men who were to be elected to three year terms followed by a mandatory four year interval before re-election. The Constitution of Virginia similarly mandated that a person elected to the office of Governor was required to vacate the post after a period of no more than three years, and could not be re-elected until another four had passed. In rather unique innovation, the document also stated that two members of the eight-man Council of State were to be removed by ballot every three years, and that these two would be ineligible to rejoin the Council for a further three years. The Constitution of Maryland echoed Virginia’s limit on the office of Governor, while the Constitution of North Carolina instructed that the same post could not be held by anyone for more than three in six successive years. The Constitution of South Carolina meanwhile limited service as Governor to two consecutive years with an interval of four, and the Constitution of Delaware to three years with an interval of three more. The Articles of Confederation, which the United States Constitution ultimately replaced, were similarly concerned with limiting the ability of any officeholder from becoming too entrenched. Article 5 of the selfsame document consequently limited service as a delegate in the Continental Congress to no more than three years in “any term of six [.]”

If these examples are any indication – and they certainly seem to be – Americans were already abundantly familiar with the principle of terms limits by the time the proposed constitution was being debated in the late 1780s. And this familiarity extended beyond the realm of theory, beyond scholarly discussion and hypothetical models. By 1788, when Warren’s Observations was published, citizens of a number of states had been living and working under the authority of governments that practiced the rotation of offices for a decade or more. Admittedly, she did not live in such a state herself – the Constitution of Massachusetts placed no term limits on the offices of Governor, Senator, or Representative. Yet she clearly understood, based on the above-quoted passage of Observations, why a republican government might require such limits to be placed upon its officers. Without some provision for the rotation of offices, Warren argued in Observations, Americans under the proposed constitution might lose a valuable check on the “overbearing insolence of office,” that, “keeps the mind of man in quilibrio, and teaches him the feelings of the governed, and better qualifies him to govern in his turn.” The way this statement is phrased speaks to Warren’s prioritization of public service over personal ambition. What mattered to her, and what she perceived the proposed constitution as being incapable of doing, was ensuring that the interests of the community were being served. Men might well aspire to national office under the new federal charter for less than selfless reasons. Though it may have been unavoidable to keep such persons from being elected, Warren evidently believed it was possible, if not imperative, to ensure that federal officeholders were forced to sacrifice their ambitions in service of the general public. Accordingly, if a man were not fitted to govern by his own principles, or lack thereof, measures could be taken to, “better [qualify] him to govern in his turn.” This was a very republican sentiment, and far from the only one Warren expressed in Observations.