The Program for Leadership and Character’s Michael Lamb delivered a pair of lectures last October laying out the case for character in our public and political lives based on what the founders taught us about keeping our republic. Wake Forest magazine is publishing this abridged version of his Lifelong Learning lectureat Wake Forest as part of America From the Forest, our series marking America’s 250th anniversary.
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On September 17th, 1787 – the last day of the Constitutional Convention – Elizabeth Willing Powel, the former first lady of Philadelphia who was a close friend and advisor of George Washington, asked a pointed question of Benjamin Franklin, one of the Convention’s most distinguished delegates: “Well Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”
Franklin’s reply is now famous: “A republic,” he said, “if you can keep it.”
Franklin’s answer is as relevant today as it was more than 200 years ago. But how do we keep our republic?
Typically, the answer—at least, as taught in high school civics—involves two strategies. The first is designing and preserving democratic institutions of government, those first established when the framers shaped the contours of our constitution. A second way to keep our republic is through regular elections, which ensure that “we the people” have a voice and a vote. But well-designed institutions and elections, on their own, are not enough to tame self-interest or prevent the abuse of power.
Therefore, I want to suggest a third vital constitutional safeguard: character.
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Preserving our constitution requires good character—the set of intellectual, moral, and civic virtues that leaders and citizens need to sustain democratic institutions, to elect wise leaders and hold them accountable, and to ensure liberty and justice, not just for some but for all. If a democratic republic is to be self-governing, then we the people must be able to govern ourselves.
The founders knew this. As numerous scholars have recognized, the founders—both Federalist and anti-Federalist, religious and secular—held that virtue is vital to self-government. Indeed, as the President of the National Constitution Center, Jeffrey Rosen, has recently argued in his book, The Pursuit of Happiness, the founders followed ancient philosophers in holding that happiness was an aim not only of human life but of government—and one that required an enduring commitment to character.
George Washington celebrated the “indissoluble union between virtue and happiness” in his First Inaugural Address. “Without virtue,” Thomas Jefferson affirmed, “happiness cannot be.”
For the founders, “happiness” did not consist simply in pleasure or a positive mood.
Instead, they followed the ancients is seeing happiness as “flourishing,” as realizing our full potential as human beings – as individuals and communities. In this sense, happiness involves not only pleasure but purpose, not only the pursuit of material comfort but what Toni Morrison now calls the “pursuit of meaningfulness.” In this context, virtues of character are essential for flourishing. They perfect our capacities to think, feel, and act in ways that help us – and our communities – flourish. In the spirit of Wake Forest’s motto, Pro Humanitate, the virtues help us to develop our humanity within ourselves to serve humanity beyond ourselves.
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Given our divisions today in the United States, much less across the globe, we should not expect to form a “United Party of Virtue,” as Benjamin Franklin envisioned. But our nation would be better if we could at least, across parties, form a united front—one that recognizes that we need leaders and citizens of character to preserve and defend the Constitution, and that education, especially higher education, can play a vital role in cultivating knowledge and character. If the Constitution calls us to “form a more perfect union,” a vital step is to form more perfect citizens.
As citizens, I hope we can all unite to elevate virtue and defend the Constitution and higher education at a time when both are imperiled. I have a humble and steadfast hope, reinforced here at Wake Forest, that this crucible can produce a refinement of character.
So, what have we got? A monarchy or a republic?
Franklin’s answer reminds us that the success of the American experiment is in our hands. As “we the people” envision the future of our republic, may we have the character to keep it.
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Michael Lamb is the F. M. Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character, Senior Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character, and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities.
