THE FALL OF REPUBLICS

How governments fail.

Traditionally, a nation without a monarch, writes Madden, professor of history at Saint Louis University, a republic is defined by today’s scholars as a mixed-government system with separate branches of authority. Designed to prevent any individual or group from monopolizing power, republics work—until they don’t. Ancient Sparta had two kings; the Roman Republic and Carthage none. Emphasizing political science over history, Madden delivers a detailed description of how their respective governments functioned. He asserts that all three were prosperous and thriving when their internal balance of power broke down and powerful groups discovered that the biggest national threats were fellow citizens. The author quotes Machiavelli, who wrote, “Whoever wishes to found a state and give it laws, must start with the assumption that all men are wicked and ever ready to display their vicious nature.” Madden follows with outstanding portraits of thinkers familiar to America’s Founding Fathers, from Thomas Hobbes to John Locke. Despite a bad press during the American Revolution, the English often gave their king a hard time. After executing him in 1649, they had second thoughts and stumbled into a genuine mixed-government in 1689. The Founding Fathers, having seemingly read every available book on statecraft (John Adams wrote his own), created a government whose separation of powers (executive, legislative, judicial) aimed to prevent its collapse into tyranny. Madden deplores President Trump’s efforts to “overthrow” the Constitution but writes that those efforts have failed: “The constitutional safeguards held.” He concludes by warning that the decline of classroom history and civics is producing a generation of Americans who “view presidents as four-year kings, Congress as a gaggle of loud and ineffective politicians, and Supreme Court justices as a priestly class.”

A good lesson on government operation that awards top marks to the Founding Fathers.