The Classical Ancestry of the United States Constitution

Abstract

practice went hand in hand with theory, and ideas were regarded as more important than techniques, was its political activity. In no field were Greek and Roman sources more often invoked; and at no time were they more frequently cited than during the preliminary discussions, the debates on the Constitution, the ratifying conventions, the Federalist papers and such publications as John Dickinson's Fabius Letters. The framers of the Constitution did not merely echo or imitate this ancient material: they applied it to the task in hand and transmuted it into workable form. In many cases, given themes from antiquity supplied arguments for both sides of a debate. It is solely with this Great Document in its relation to the classics that we are here concerned. There is no attempt to settle certain problems of Colonial history, or to put the Greco-Roman ideas in competition with modern political scientists, with whom they were of course familiar. Perhaps a remark of Alfred North Whitehead may throw some light:' I know of only two occasions when the people in power did what needed to be done about as well as you can imagine its being possible. One was the framing of your American Constitution. They were able statesmen: they had access to a body of good ideas: they incorporated these principles into the instrument without trying to particularize too explicitly how they should be put into effect; and they were men of immense practical experience themselves.2 The other was in Rome, when Augustus called in the 'new men' of new ideas. These delegates of 1787 were praised by Pitt, by Otto the French attache, by Chastellux and by Lord Camden. Jefferson, perhaps with his