Civic virtue does not seem to be of much interest in 21^st century America.  Perhaps for good reason.  It is hard to be civically virtuous when any attempt to be so is taken advantage of.  It’s a lamentable loss.  For in the end, civic virtue has the power to keep people together longer than institutions and documents.  We tend to rely on institutions and documents to do our heavy lifting; we treat these things as if they can police our behavior and withstand our abuse of them when really the opposite is true.  Civic virtue buttresses institutions and laws.  In states where civic virtue is eroding, institutions and documents become hollowed out from the inside.  We can abuse a document like the Constitution for only so long before it will crumble.  For a crisis in civic virtue, we need look no further than the controversy over the Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Ginsberg.  In a society with a strong sense of civic virtue, we would follow established precedents that serve the common good rather than twisting our logic into knots to justify our arguments that in truth are merely naked grabs for power – just to be sure, there has never been a Supreme Court justice confirmed after July in an election year.  This is but one example of many that could be provided from contemporary American political life.

The Romans had a strong tradition of civic virtue.  Many of the stories the Romans told about themselves were meant to provide examples of civic virtue, and although many of these stories were from the dim past or overly romanticized, they instructed generations of Romans to put the public good over private advantage.  No story exemplified this better than the account of the dictatorship of Cincinnatus in 458 BCE.  First, it should be noted that the Romans had a constitutional office of dictator that they would turn to in times of emergency, usually after a foreign army soundly defeated a Roman army.  The dictator, as we might suspect, had broad powers; the Romans therefore put as many constraints on the dictator as possible while also giving him wide latitude to accomplish the necessary task.  Therefore, the senate had to issue a decree authorizing the consuls to nominate a dictator, who then had to be ratified by the people, thereby giving consent to the broad powers.  In addition, the dictator had a deputy, the master of horse, who was not necessarily the dictator’s political ally.  Lastly, the dictator was given six months to address the emergency; if he had not done so within that time, his office was up and other means were taken.  We might imagine that an unscrupulous dictator could hold onto his power and use it to become master of the Roman people.  The Romans were aware of this possibility too, but no dictator ever abused his power in this way for over four hundred years. 

Cincinnatus had been an accomplished politician and general.  As the story goes, he was in semi-retirement, cultivating his fields across the Tiber River, when the embassy of senators approached him (Livy 3.26-30).  The enemy had defeated Roman armies in the field and there was need for a reliable commander.  “Cincinnatus, will you lead us?” the senators asked.  With some reluctance, Cincinnatus asked for his toga – the formal dress of a Roman as a citizen – and said yes.  The senate had chosen wisely, for Cincinnatus put down the enemy threat and turned over his authority in sixteen days, though he had six months.  He could have reasonably and constitutionally held onto his command for another five months.  Instead, he handed over the fasces, the Roman symbols of legitimate political and military power, and retired to his farm.  For the Romans, two things were important about this story.  First, service to the Republic took precedence over private gain; the public good prevailed over individual power.  Second, and a derivative of the first, Romans were simple people who pursued the common virtues of hard work and personal responsibility, shunning luxury and personal wealth and power. 

Lucius Cornelius Sulla provided another example – the individual who would use whatever means were available to hold onto power and violently crush his political enemies.  In 83 BCE, Sulla returned to Italy fresh off his victory against Mithridates, not simply to parade in triumph and lay down his weapons, but to march on Rome once again and punish his enemies and reward his friends.  There were several bloody battles, after which Sulla slaughtered his defeated opponents.  The bloodshed continued once formal military engagements ended.  Sulla drew up proscription lists of his enemies numbering several thousand.  Once Sulla’s rivals had been crushed, a leading senator proposed to make Sulla dictator for rewriting the laws and restructuring the constitution – a radical reshaping of the traditional office of dictator; the proposal was passed into law by the people – who would be foolish enough to vote against it? – thus giving Sulla constitutional legitimacy for his dictatorship.  Unlike Cincinnatus, Sulla faced no immediate external threat to Rome, and further there was no time limit to Sulla’s authority as dictator.  Sulla’s reforms of the laws were not entirely harmful, some may have even been needed, such as those pertaining to membership in the senate, provincial government, and the law courts.  However, he took a harsh view of the people’s tribunes and popular measures; he abolished the distribution of grain to the poor and limited the power of the tribunes by restricting the use of their veto, removing their right to propose legislation, and making them ineligible for future offices.  Sulla could claim to be a lawgiver and restorer of the traditional constitution, but he was lacking in civic virtue.  His reforms served the aristocratic elite most of all, and he took violent means to achieve them.  His reform of the tribunate, which was contrary to tradition, would not stand for more than a decade and led to much animosity and civil strife.  Sulla would not live to see much of this strife, as he retired from the dictatorship after two years (81-79 BCE) and died a year later.  Several decades later Caesar would declare himself dictator for life.  The evil that Sulla had done lived after him.

The memory of Cincinnatus and Sulla would live on in the American psyche as well, at least for the Founders, who venerated Cincinnatus as a model and decided against the inclusion of the office of dictator in the U.S. Constitution, fearing another Sulla.  George Washington, upon leaving the presidency, was hailed as a second Cincinnatus.  Indeed, statues of him standing before a plow can be found at Mt. Vernon and the Virginia statehouse, symbolizing his return to a civilian’s private life – though unlike Cincinnatus who worked his own fields, Washington had his slaves do the actual plowing.  The city of Cincinnati carries on the legacy of Cincinnatus and boasts several public monuments to him.  The idea of a public figure willingly surrendering power is an honored tradition and is publicly celebrated every time the newly elected president escorts the former president from the White House.

We should not take this for granted.  The current president has already cast seeds of doubt on the validity of the next election as he did before the previous election.  In the last couple of days, Trump has gone so far as to say that he would not concede if he lost the election. We should not be surprised at this point by these statements. It is hard to imagine a man of the president’s temperament yielding the White House following an election that some deem illegitimate.  Despite the president being constitutionally limited to two terms, Trump has repeatedly hinted that he could stay in office beyond that time, for example see his initial tweet after his impeachment acquittal.  Of course, he maintains plausible deniability, claiming that he is just trying to rile up the media, but this is just another way to test the waters of public opinion, which is why he must be challenged every time he suggests it. 

Yet it is not just the president saying this.  Following the Democratic presidential debate on June 26, 2019, longtime Senator Lindsey Graham even tweeted, “that whole Trump 3rd term thing is looking better and better.”  Of course, this is all before the election for Trump’s second term.  Such sycophancy from an ardent supporter of the president would not be so shocking if it were not coming from a senator whose constitutionally mandated job is to be a check on the power of the presidency.  Some may assert with confidence that the Constitution prevents the president from holding a third term, as is indeed true, but Trump himself already claims that he is not limited by the Constitution.  In a speech before the Turning Point USA Student Summit in Washington DC on July 23, 2019, he said of the Constitution, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”  During his impeachment trial, Trump’s defense team repeatedly argued that the president is above the law; Alan Dershowitz went so far as to say “If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

The president is not a dictator like Sulla.  U.S. citizens would be foolish to give him, or any other individual, the opportunity to become one.  If we vote to remove Trump from office, it may take a demonstration of our civic virtue to actually get him out of the White House.  There are those who are calling upon voters to develop a plan for voting.  This is wise advice.  Yes, we should all have November 3^rd noted on our calendars.  Developing a plan for November 4^th and the days and weeks following will be equally important.