The American Founders and History

Part One: The Melian Dialogue

Last week’s blog dealt with the Peloponnesian War, and we reserved for today an incident involving the Greek island of Melos,. Before moving on, for those who enjoy learning history by reading historical novels, I recommend Steven Pressfield’s Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War.

This week will focus on the founders of our American republic and what they learned from ancient history. Today, we combine the two subjects: What was the “Melian dialogue” reported by Thucydides, and what did Americans like Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison learn from it?

Any American historian, especially a constitutional scholar, knows that our government and constitution were based on the Enlightenment political philosophy of John Locke, Baron Montesquieu, and others, and also on the lessons of history—especially the history of past republics. And the main examples of democratic and republican government known to educated Englishmen and Americans of the 1770s and 1780s were Greek and Roman. One of the most important and widely shared lessons our founders learned from ancient history was the importance of what they might call “civic virtue.”

Virtue is a Latin word whose root meaning is “manly.” Classical Roman historians and American revolutionary leaders alike would have understood it this way: that among men, virtue and virility are aspects of the same character. For example, like many privileged schoolboys, part of George Washington’s education was copying down 110 “Rules of Civility,” and he was no wimp. But civic virtue is more than etiquette, as tomorrow’s post will explore further. It also involves holding office as a trust for the good of the people, rather than as a means of personal gain. Washington could have remained president as long as he wanted. When he chose not to run for re-election to a third term in 1796, the constitution did not yet forbid his doing so. The 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two terms wasn’t passed until 1951.

Another civic virtue is dedication to the causes of liberty and justice, and here Thucydides’ account of how Athens treated Melos is an object lesson. This section of his History of the Peloponnesian War is called the Melian dialogue because it is an example of Thucydides’ habit of using often hypothetical speeches and dialogue to explain the nuances of what happened. During the war between Athens and Sparta, the island of Melos tried to remain neutral. Even though the Melians were Dorians of the same ethnicity as the Spartans, they wouldn’t fight for Sparta. Even though they were a sea-trading island like its other members, they refused to join the Delian League, the Athenian alliance.

Athens, a sea power, resented Melian neutrality more than Sparta, a land power farther away. The Athenians dispatched ambassadors, a fleet, and troops to force Melos to ally with Athens and join the Delian League. If Delos refused, the Athenians threatened to kill the men and enslave the women and children. When the Athenian diplomats explained that, under these circumstances, it would be folly for little Melos to continue to resist, the Melian assembly appealed to the Athenians’ sense of justice and to international law. They were neutrals who had done Athens no harm. To attack them would be unjust and a violation of natural rights and international law. To this the Athenians made the famous reply that practical people recognize only one law: “the strong do what they will; and the weak suffer what they must.”

This Athenian argument is the opposite of what Washington and the other American founders considered civic virtue. Yet, Americans and others around the world have sometimes heard its equivalent from politicians over the past 250 years. It was immoral; It was ruthless; And it represents a rejection of liberty and justice for all.