The New York Times - USA - Book Review (2020-12-13)

24 SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2020

STUNNED BY THEoutcome of the 2016 pres-
idential election, Thomas E. Ricks felt com-
pelled to ask a question that is just as perti-
nent now as it was then: “What is America
supposed to be, anyway?” His search for
an answer led him back to the Revolution-
ary generation to discover their original vi-
sion for the nation. “First Principles: What
America’s Founders Learned From the
Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped
Our Country” marks a departure for Ricks,
a prizewinning journalist, the author of

several works on contemporary military
and national security affairs and a col-
umnist for The Times Book Review. In this
instructive new book, he offers a judicious
account of the equivocal inheritance left to
modern Americans by their 18th-century
forebears.
“First Principles” tracks the intellectual
journeys of the first four presidents by fo-
cusing on their immersion in the classics,
which, according to Ricks, exerted an “un-
derappreciated” influence on their think-
ing. Familiarity with classical learning, a
hallmark of European and colonial Ameri-
can genteel culture, was not inherently
revolutionary. When confronted by an im-
perial crisis that spiraled into an independ-
ence movement, however, American revo-
lutionaries turned to this ancient knowl-
edge as a practical guide in justifying their
rebellion and forming new governments. It
taught them that the success of their enter-
prise depended above all on the cultivation
of virtue, placing the public good before
private interest.
The foremost exemplar of the virtuous
citizen, paradoxically, was the one early
president who lacked a formal education
and never learned to read Latin. But
George Washington absorbed classical
ideas from the surrounding culture and un-
derstood the symbolic importance of craft-
ing a public image based on Roman mod-
els. Contemporaries likened him to Cato,
the defender of the Roman Republic
against the dictatorial Caesar. After the
War of Independence, Washington was
celebrated as America’s Cincinnatus, de-
termined to relinquish military command
and return to his farm. He was less pleased
with those who compared him to Fabius,
the Roman general who defeated Hannibal

by avoiding battle in order to protect his

own army.

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and

James Madison encountered the classics

while at college. Adams developed his de-

votion to Cicero at Harvard, poring over

the Roman’s famous orations in the hope of

attaining a similar eloquence. At William

and Mary, Jefferson’s tastes were more

eclectic, shaped by the empiricism of

teachers steeped in the Scottish Enlighten-

ment and by a preference for Greek philos-

ophers over Romans. Madison attended

the College of New Jersey (now Prince-

ton), whose Scottish-born president John

Witherspoon relied on the classics to en-

courage students to love liberty and pre-

serve virtue against encroachments from

private interest.

Throughout their public careers, these

men repeatedly sought wisdom from the

ancients when grappling with the chal-

lenges of their own day. Each was keenly

aware that all classical republics had even-

tually succumbed to tyranny once virtue

gave way to a pernicious factionalism.

Washington sternly warned against the

“baneful effects of the spirit of party” in his

farewell address. Of the four men, Adams

remained the most steadfast classicist. At

the time of the Stamp Act crisis in 1765, he

urged his fellow colonists to “read the his-

tories of ancient ages; contemplate the

great examples of Greece and Rome.” Dur-

ing his presidency, he saw conspiracies

around every corner, insisting that he

alone remained above party. Deprived of a

second term, he retreated to his Massachu-

setts farm, imagining himself a latter-day

Cicero, who likewise ended up “watched,

dreaded, envied, by all: no doubt Slan-

dered by innumerable Emissaries, de-

spized, insulted, belied.”

As for Jefferson, the opening words of

the Declaration of Independence testified

to his attraction to Epicurean thought,

which emphasized happiness as “the aim

of life.” Over time, classical models exerted

a greater influence over his views of archi-

tecture than of politics. His first Inaugural

Address, in 1801, barely mentioned virtue,

and his reminder that “every difference of

opinion is not a difference of principle” was

at best a lukewarm warning against fac-

tionalism.

Madison, the youngest member of this

foursome, proved the most intellectually

dynamic. He could cite ancient texts as

readily as anyone, but argue with them as

well. Observing the weaknesses of the na-

tional government under the Articles of

Confederation, he concluded that factions

were unavoidable. The key was to limit

their divisive potential through a system of

checks and balances designed to prevent

any one party from exercising overween-

ing power — an absolute necessity for a re-

public far larger than any in the ancient

world. At the Constitutional Convention,

Madison made obligatory gestures toward

virtue even as he led the way in devising a

governmental structure that placed little

reliance on the willingness of the people or

their leaders to set aside their private in-

terests for the good of all.

Vestiges of the founders’ fascination

with the classics persisted into the early

19th century among many other Ameri-

cans. New towns bore the names of ancient

cities, public buildings followed Greek and

Roman designs and politicians reviled

their opponents as latter-day Catilines, lik-

ening them to one of the most notorious

conspirators against the Roman Republic.

Yet the heyday of classicism had passed.

Such arcane knowledge smacked of elitism

in an increasingly egalitarian age. With the

rise of a market economy, Americans cele-

brated competition in pursuit of profit. Be-

ginning with Andrew Jackson, the nation’s

leaders embraced the factionalism of party

politics. No orator urged his rowdy audi-

ence to be virtuous. It seemed that the only

time Aristotle was mentioned was in de-

fense of slavery.

So where does this leave Americans in

the 21st century? Ricks concludes that the

classically trained founders bequeathed us

a mixed legacy. On the plus side, he com-

mends the nation’s eventual extension of

political rights to far more people than the

landholding white male minority enfran-

chised in the Revolutionary era. One

doubts, however, that the first four presi-

dents — three of whom were slaveholders

— would be “pleased” to see this, as Ricks

suggests. He is on surer ground in claiming

that they would be “appalled by how

money has come to dominate American

politics,” obliterating even the pretense of

virtue.

“First Principles” ends with a list of 10

steps we might take to combat our present

political ills. Americans should resuscitate

virtue as a core principle of society and

government, directing their energies at re-

forming everything — from campaign fi-

nance to a dysfunctional system of checks

and balances — that undermines the pub-

lic good. Yet, like Madison, we should be

wary of placing our trust in people’s will-

ingness to think less about themselves and

more about others. Ricks urges Americans

to fix their government so that it protects

citizens from the inevitable lapses of a falli-

ble people and, perhaps, even more fallible

leaders. How to persuade a fractious peo-

ple to improve their behavior, however,

poses as much of a challenge to us as it did

to the founders. The answer to Ricks’s

opening question appears to be that to-

day’s America is not at all what the

founders hoped the nation would be, but

represents instead what they feared it

might become. 0

Ancient Foundations

How the Greeks and Romans affected the character of America.

By VIRGINIA DeJOHN ANDERSON

VIRGINIA DEJOHN ANDERSON’Smost recent book
is “The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale,
Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution.”

FIRST PRINCIPLES
What America’s Founders Learned From
the Greeks and Romans and How That
Shaped Our Country
By Thomas E. Ricks
416 pp. Harper/HarperCollins Publishers.
$26.99.

Cato the Younger/George Washington

FROM LEFT: HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; NATIONAL ARCHIVE/NEWSMAKERS

When confronted with an

imperial crisis, America’s

founders turned to the classics.