What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

By Thomas E. Ricks

Following the 2016 election, foreign policy journalist Thomas Ricks turned to fundamentals to understand what had just happened. This effort led him on a four-year deep dive into the thinking of the Founders, from which emerged this delightful book. To understand the Founders, he needed to know how they were educated, what they read, and why they believed what they believed. He focused on the first four U.S. presidents but weaves into the story other luminaries who played prominent roles.

The Founders were profoundly influenced by Greek and Roman classicism. Washington lacked formal education but self-educated through reading and experience. John Adams (Harvard), Thomas Jefferson (William and Mary), and James Madison (Princeton) were educated based on the Scottish Enlightenment and were among a tiny minority (3,000 in a population of 2.5 million) with formal education. Jefferson and Adams were two of only eight college-educated signers of the Declaration of Independence. Formally educated or not, the ancient classics were the North Star for all, and the concept of virtue—meaning putting the common interest ahead of one’s own interests—was revered.

In their zeal to establish a new nation based on Jefferson’s immortal words “all men are created equal,” the Founders made three cardinal errors that plague the country to this day. The first was the false notion that any nation would survive on virtue alone without acknowledging the influence of personal agendas. Witness 2016. Washington gave much thought to ideas of virtue versus personal agendas during the long, hard winter of Valley Forge. Madison opined in Federalist 51, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

The second misconception was that factions (political parties) were to be or could be shunned. Despite lofty concepts of virtue, it has become clear that factions are part of human nature, are inevitable, and must be understood and controlled rather than ignored.

The third error—one nearly fatal and still an affliction today through ingrained racism—was slavery. After the War of Independence, the Articles of Confederation established what could be likened to an alliance of thirteen republics. The Constitution was similar to a peace treaty among the states, with many compromises, the most significant being acceptance of chattel slavery. A recognition that Washington, Madison, and Jefferson, among others, were slave owners provides an explanation. Notably, Washington was the only slaveholder among the Founders who manumitted slaves at his death. With the benefit of hindsight, we recognize that the compromise on slavery simply delayed a bloody civil war.

Ricks takes his readers into the decades following the Constitution to argue that reverence for selfless Greco-Roman classicism has disappeared. The rise of the workingman (“all men are created equal”) has diverted the focus from philosophical concepts of virtue to the day-to-day, more selfish requirements of the free market among commerce, politics, and religion. But, as Ricks acknowledges, “America works best when it gives people freedom to tap their own energies and exploit their talents.”

He ends the book with ten steps for course correction to bring America closer to the Founders’ ideals. The first of these is “Don’t panic.” The Founders foresaw demagogues, building in checks and balances that must be allowed to work. The last of the ten steps is “Know your history.” Knowing your history tells you where you are and where you need to go. Read the book for the other eight steps. You won’t regret it.

—Thad Zajdowicz, Co-editor, Book Corner