The True Birth of Republican Ideas
"United States is the alpha and omega of Republicanism"
By Bruce Fein* - I am informed by reliable authorities that Turkish youths are customarily taught that Republican ideas spread from France to the United States, not vice versa. As a United States citizen, I cannot claim scrupulous neutrality in the matter. But I would submit that a candid evaluation of the facts demonstrates that the United States is the alpha and omega of Republicanism, and that France does not even deserve a consolation prize.

Republican ideas blossomed in America when France groaned under a stifling Bourbon monarchy featuring privileged estates, arbitrary letters de cachet, and the ignominious Bastille. In the John Peter Zenger seditious libel trial in the then British colony of New York in 1735, truth was established as a defense to seditious utterances. The precedent further held that juries, not judges, would determine whether a statement was defamatory.

In 1761, James Otis denounced British general writs of assistance that empowered customs officers to ransack homes and businesses in search of evidence of law violations. His thrilling words in defense of the right of privacy and the sacredness of the home against petty tyrants culminated in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protecting the people from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Thomas Jefferson, in the 1776 Declara-tion of Independence, celebrated the fundamentals of Repub-licanism: government by the consent of the governed through fair, popular, and periodical elections; the supremacy of individual happiness and aspirations over state goals; the equality of all citizens in the eyes of the law; and, redress of grievances through peaceful political methods, unless confronting a tyranny so deaf and unrelenting as to justify revolution.

The United States Constitution was forged in 1787, and a ten amendment codicil, the Bill of Rights, was endor-sed by Congress in 1789. The Consti-tution, as amended, has proved the most stunning achievement in the art of self-government in the history of mankind. Among its Republican ideas that have withstood the test of time and the vicissitudes of nationhood are: a separation of powers between the legislature, executive, and judiciary as a check against tyranny; independent federal judges with life tenure empowered to hold the actions of States, the President, or Congress unconstitutional, giving teeth to the rule of law and a creating a mighty shield against majoritarian tyranny; the election of Members of Congress, the Senate, and President at different intervals as a barrier to transient and headstrong political action; and, a single executive to insure popular accountability characteristically evaded by collective decision-making.

Individual rights sparkle in the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment secures freedom of speech, the press, religion, and popular assembly. It further creates a formidable if occasionally blurry separation of church and state, for instance, no official sponsored prayers in public schools.

In the United States, the idea of sanctioning a citizen for assailing government ineptitude, corruption, or stupidity is First Amendment heresy.

Defamatory false statements of fact regarding public officials of public figures remain protected speech unless published with knowledge of their falsity. And expressions of opinion can never be sanctioned. Compare the libel laws of France which occasioned the conviction of the great novelist and writer Emile Zola arising from his defense of Captain Dreyfus falsely accused of spying for Germany. The freedom of assembly protects mass demonstrations in public streets and parks, but subject to reasonable time, place, and manner limitations. Indeed, the unique Republican idea of America is the celebration of both the right and duty to criticize the government for perceived defects. Inertness is a Republican vice. The First Amendment is what makes public opinion and the media the decisive voices in government policy, the hallmark of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

United States Republicanism also brought forth the cherished notion of the right to privacy: that is, the right to be left alone from government snooping or surveillance absent a strong law enforcement or other public need. Thus, the Fourth Amendment generally prohibits searches or seizures absent probable cause to suspect crime is afoot. The Fifth Amendment protects the right to silence of an accused. The First Amendment prohibits any government inquiry into private thoughts, and no religious oath may be required for public service.

It is true that time was required before all of America's Republican ideals were fully honored. Slavery was not outlawed until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. The right to equal protection of the laws and to vote without regard to race or gender were not secured until the ratifications of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments. But the progress of Republicanism has been steady from colonial times until today with no backsliding. The Constitution has repeatedly demonstrated its ready adaptability to unforeseen circumstances and changes in public orthodoxies or values. It has been a starting point for numerous other countries in the process of fashioning their own constitutions.

The Founding Fathers drew overwhelmingly on British common law and ideas voiced by such writers as John Locke and Thomas Paine in crystallizing their Republican views. The only French thinker regularly invoked was Montesquieu and his Spirit of the Laws.

The French in their 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and 1791 Constitution sought the counsel or borrowed from several prominent Americans, such as Governor Morris, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. Further, the French honored their Republican ideas more in the breach than in the observance. The Revolution soon plunged into the Reign of Terror. It later succumbed to Napoleon's despotism. And after Waterloo, France restored the discredited and feeble Bourbon dynasty with the crowning of Louis XVIII. France remained under monarchy until its 1848 Revolution and the short-lived Second Republic. Napoleon III's ill-starred emperorship succeeded the Second Republic and continued until his defeat in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war. Then came the Third Republic scandalized by the Dreyfus affair, massive corruption, and the quick surrender to Hitler in World War II. The squalid Vichy regime of Marshal Petain and Pierre Laval (1940-1944) collaborated with Hitler's Holocaust and abandoned any pretense of democracy or the rule of law. The Fourth Republic, forged after the war, witnessed humiliations and unspeakable cruelties in Vietnam and Algeria. General DeGaulle was summoned from retirement to prevent France from descending into civil war in 1958. He demanded and received a heavily weighted presidential constitutional charter, styled the Fifth Republic, in which the legislature and courts are marginalized.

The United States taught and inculcated its Republican ideas in post-World War II Germany and Japan and in its colonies or territories, such as Puerto Rico and the Phillippines. France has never exported Republicanism abroad. None of its former colonies in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos, or in Africa, such as Algeria, Ivory Coast, or Chad, have ever shown the trappings of Republicanism. Former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing recently revealed volumes about French ideas in disputing that Turkey could ever be a part of Europe or European civilization. That is not a Republican idea. It is sheer bigotry and small-mindedness.

*Bruce Fein is an adjunct scholar with ATAA. The views expressed in the column are his own.