There’s a good deal of talk today, by people who imagine themselves to be serious thinkers, about doing away with the U.S. Constitution in favor of establishing a more “just” government. What would such a utopian polity look like? In the imaginations of radicals, it all sounds great, though history’s track record of human flourishing in cases where such sweeping overhauls have occurred is, to put it mildly, not great.
In an age when our commonwealth is crumbling, it’s instructive to take the example of another political institution that has long served as a model for American aspirations: Rome. The Roman Republic lasted for nearly 500 years because its institutions were profoundly conservative, even as its leaders took a pragmatic attitude that adapted ancient customs to the needs of the present. But how, more specifically, did Rome achieve such glorious heights, and why did it fall? For the great historian and super-patriot Livy, the answer was simple: moral character….