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Republicanism and the Founding of America
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13480 |
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Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1987 |
4,755 Words |
| Author
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Marcus Cunliffe
Marcus Cunliffe is professor of history at George Washington
University. |
America is sometimes described as the first republic in the modern world. There had been ancient republics like Athens and Rome. Switzerland and Holland were also regarded in the eighteenth century as republics; and there were still some surviving examples among the city-states of Italy, which at the time of the American Revolution was not a unified nation but a patchwork of jurisdictions. The United States, however, was the first new nation to declare itself a republic, repudiating the British monarchy in whose name the American colonies had been governed. Americans saw themselves as pioneers, setting an example for rising democracies all over the world. They were therefore cheered but not surprised when the French Revolution likewise produced a republic, with Vive la Republique! as its patriotic cry in place of Vive le Roi! A few years later, Americans anticipated the emergence of republics in Latin America, as Mexico and other provinces threw off the rule of Spain. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 breathes this spirit of militant and confident republicanism. It announces that henceforth the American hemisphere is not to be subject to colonization by European monarchies; it is envisaged as the realm of New World republicanism.
The Scottish-born American millionaire Andrew Carnegie expressed pride in American republicanism. He cherished an affection for the land of his birth as well as for the country that had brought him fame and riches. He dreamed of a merger that would bring the United States and the British Empire under one flag - though without going into detail as to whose flag it would be. Yet, as Carnegie explained in his book Triumphant Democracy (1886), there was one big problem. Britain remained a monarchy, and for Carnegie this was an expensive, class-ridden, and obsolete form of government, totally incompatible with America. Carnegie announced that he hoped to live to see the day when monarchy was "as extinct as the dodo."
His hopes and predictions did not quite come true, which may be the way with future-guessing. In the main, Carnegie was correct in equating American self-esteem with republicanism. The United States of his era was commonly spoken of "the Republic." or perhaps "the Great Republic." The institution and the nation were nearly synonymous: The one presumed the other.
The idea of republicanism in the twentieth century tended to take second place to democracy. Indeed in the American history books of a generation ago you might well not find republicanism in the indexes, though democracy was very likely to be there. Today the situation is different. Numerous historians seek to show
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