Making a Necessity of Virtue
The wistful trope says that lost causes are the only kind worth fighting for. But understood another way—“lost” not in the sense of abandoned hope, but erased or forgotten; and “cause” not as a goal, but as origin or reason—it is possible to imagine that lost causes are the only kind worth looking for. In this sense, there are two causes for the Declaration that tomorrow marks its 250th anniversary that are now mostly lost to collective memory.
First, in 1763, after the British nearly bankrupted themselves defending their American colonists in the French and Indian War, which England had not wanted (and, incidentally, was triggered by the blundering of a young militia officer who would later be sanctified as the Father of His Country), they set forth a new rule to prevent any further, similar mischief: No colonists would be permitted to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains—ever. This was a bitter pill for a populace gripped by a nagging suspicion that the wealth to be grasped beyond that frontier might yet amount to more than all the combined fortunes run up in the history of humanity. (As it turned out, they were right.)
Second, a British court in 1772 issued a decision that “the state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political [and] is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it.” This decision had no immediate effect on the colonies in America, and it would take decades before Britain fully outlawed slavery. But the direction in which the tide was running became clear from that moment.
Together, these portents would mean forgoing the limitless treasure beyond the western horizon, along with bringing down an institution upon which the southern economy depended, and northern banks grew rich financing. But there was another way: British subjects in America could cease to be British—indeed, cease to be colonists. So the clock began ticking.
As they drafted the Declaration, the founders inserted the phrase “pursuit of happiness” as one of the “unalienable Rights” they sought to protect. To modern ears, this sounds like seeking pleasure or ease. In fact, their meaning was almost precisely the opposite.
The lost cause at that moment was the preoccupation that the framers shared about ancient Greece and Rome. Many of them were guided by Cicero’s belief that, “without virtue, happiness cannot be,” and Aristotle’s ideal of “eudaimonia.” The word translates very loosely as “happiness,” but actually means living a life of the highest virtue.
Jump ahead to 1787, and the wife of Philadelphia Mayor Samuel Powel approaches Benjamin Franklin as he exits the Constitutional Convention, asking, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin famously replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.”
Less often recalled is the next part of their exchange. Ms. Powel asked, “And why not keep it?” To which Franklin answered, “because the people, on tasting the dish, are always disposed to eat more of it than does them good.” He appears to have been referring to the deficit of virtue that foretokened the end of the Roman Republic.
Seven decades hence, Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War William Seward would reflect on the bloody struggle to purge slavery from America, and say, “there was always just enough virtue in this Republic to save it; sometimes none to spare, but still enough to meet the emergency.”
Now, a quarter of a millennium after our forebears held certain truths to be self-evident, we still have that republic, at least for the foreseeable future. Per Franklin’s warning, we have more than once gorged ourselves on indulgences that have done us little good. But as Seward discerned, we have not yet run out of virtue, although there are moments when we appear to have no surplus in reserve.
The litany of improvisations and compromises struck upon the founders and framers—some brilliant, others difficult to be proud of—make clear how little sympathy they would have for our attempts to valorize them. Their proud epitaph for themselves would likely be, “we did the best we could.” And their harsh question for us might be, “can you say the same?”
As George Santayana once wrote, “we must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.”
But enough. There is a holiday at hand, and much to celebrate. For the moment, assure yourself that we continue to do the best we can, and (for now, at least) it continues to be enough—even if by the thinnest of margins. Here’s wishing it will be so always. Or at least for another 250 years.