Republicanism - Theory In Action
THEORY IN ACTION
The United States is the most prominent and influential example of the modern liberal republic. It is difficult, however, to understand the United States without understanding that its founders thought they had learned much from the previous experience of humanity in republican government. Republican theory and had been found so wanting that, as the Federalist Papers sharply assert, had modern republicanism not improved on ancient republicanism, "the enlightened friends of liberty would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that species of government as indefensible." To understand republicanism in practice, then, we begin with the ancient example of Sparta, that Greek city which, by implementing the classical republican idea in the most extreme manner, provided students of republicanism with a vivid portrait of that idea in action.
Sparta
Sparta was an extreme but revealing example of the...
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