In the framers’ view, corruption in the broader sense of using public office for private ends was essentially the opposite of public virtue, and was therefore a central threat to the life and health of the republic. A republican form of government required that men act as citizens, concerned for the public good, and not merely as private, self-interested individuals. The Enlightenment philosopher Baron de Montesquieu, perhaps the greatest intellectual influence on the framing generation, maintained that the misfortune of a republic…happens when the people are gained by bribery and corruption: in this case they grow indifferent to public affairs, and avarice becomes their predominant passion. For James Madison, without civic virtue, “no theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea.”
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 20:59:19 +0000