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The values and ideals of republicanism are foundational in the constitution and history of the United States.[2][3] As the United States constitution prohibits granting titles of nobility, republicanism in this context does not refer to a political movement to abolish such a social class, as it does in countries such as the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands. Instead, it refers to the core values that citizenry in a republic have,[4][5] or ought to have.
Political scientists and historians have described these central values as liberty and inalienable individual rights; recognizing the sovereignty of the people as the source of all authority in law;[6] rejecting monarchy, aristocracy, and hereditary political power; virtue and faithfulness in the performance of civic duties; and vilification of corruption.[7] These values are based on those of Ancient Greco-Roman, Renaissance, and English models and ideas.[8] Articulated in the writings of the Founding Fathers (particularly Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams),[9] they formed the intellectual basis for the American Revolution – the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Constitution (1787), and the Bill of Rights (1791), as well as the Gettysburg Address (1863).[10]
Politicians and scholars have debated the connection of these values with issues like honest government, democracy, individualism, property rights, military service; or their compatibility with slavery, inequitable distribution of wealth, economic self-interest, limits on the rights of minorities, and national debt.
In the United States Constitution, republic is mentioned once, in section four of Article Four, where it is stated: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government ...". Two major political parties in American history have used the term in their name[11] – the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson (1793–1824; also known as the Jeffersonian Republican Party) and the Republican Party (founded in 1854 and named after the Jeffersonian party).[12]
- ^ Kenneth R. Bowling "A Capital before a Capitol: Republican Visions," in Donald R. Kennon ed. A Republic for the Ages: The United States Capitol and the Political Culture of the Early Republic (1999)
- ^ Robert E. Shalhope, "Toward a Republican Synthesis: The Emergence of an Understanding of Republicanism in American Historiography," William and Mary Quarterly, 29 (January 1972), pp. 49–80.
- ^ Brown, Gordon (April 1990). "Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution". Chicago-Kent Law Review. 66: 13, 19–20.
- ^ Hart, (2002), ch. 1
- ^ Lovett, Frank; Pettit, Philip (June 2009). "Neorepublicanism: A Normative and Institutional Research Program". Annual Review of Political Science. 12 (1): 11–29. doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.12.040907.120952. ISSN 1094-2939.
- ^ Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 370
- ^ Richard Buel, Securing the Revolution: Ideology in American Politics, 1789–1815 (1972)
- ^ Becker et al (2002), ch 1
- ^ "Republicanism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. June 19, 2006. Retrieved September 20, 2022.
- ^ Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (2011) pp. 95ff.
- ^ "Democratic-Republican Party". The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Archived from the original on July 13, 2017.
- ^ Robert Williams, Horace Greeley: champion of American freedom (2006) pp. 175–176