America modeled on Athenian democracy

I've been reading a bit about Athenian democracy recently, and I started to wonder - is there any way to get the US Constitution to be modeled explicitly on Athenian laws, rather than merely influenced by some general ideas of classical democracy? This could include the same legislative and executive structure (ecclesia and archons), citizen vetting of officials before they entered office, immediate extension of the franchise to all adult white males, and something resembling the jury system created under Pericles.

I don't know as much as I should about the specific ideologies and influences of the Founding Fathers, so if this is entirely implausible or there were no Patriot leaders with a special affinity for Greece, you can disregard the question.

Bonus points for the amount of idiosyncratic Greek laws (ostracism, etc) you can work into the Constitution.
 
I think it is very implausible, partly because of the way enlightenment thinkers thought about the greeks. They certainly thought that they were bringing about the ancient idea of freedom, but there is a major difference between the Greek idea of "freedom" and the Enlightenment idea of "freedom." For the Greeks freedom meant the ability for each man to actually take part as law maker and law giver in the society. While Enlightenment thought was more based on individuals being free from being ruled.

The Founding fathers didn't think the average man could actually govern, and the only way we Americans do govern ourselves in the sense of a Jury. Where random people decide the punishment of our fellow citizens.

If the founding fathers decided on the Greek model, the whole nation would fall apart faster than it was created.
 
I think it is very implausible, partly because of the way enlightenment thinkers thought about the greeks. They certainly thought that they were bringing about the ancient idea of freedom, but there is a major difference between the Greek idea of "freedom" and the Enlightenment idea of "freedom." For the Greeks freedom meant the ability for each man to actually take part as law maker and law giver in the society. While Enlightenment thought was more based on individuals being free from being ruled.

Were there any prominent Enlightenment thinkers who did advocate direct democracy? I know it wasn't a mainstream position; my intention with this challenge was to find out if there was anyone who could have pushed for Athenian-style democracy if they were more prominent in early American leadership.
 
Your other huge, HUGE problem is the sheer size of the US. There is no conceivable way that the entire US citizen population could meet in one place and make decisions. You HAVE to have representative democracy in a country this size (well, assuming you have democracy at all:)).
 
Your other huge, HUGE problem is the sheer size of the US. There is no conceivable way that the entire US citizen population could meet in one place and make decisions. You HAVE to have representative democracy in a country this size (well, assuming you have democracy at all:)).

Perhaps it could be organized on direct democracy for states and representative for federal stuff?
 
I would say direct democracy for towns instead, but that's pushing it. The Articles of Confederation had a democracy that's more direct than what the Constitution has, and the founding fathers decided it wasn't working out.
 

Flubber

Banned
Were there any prominent Enlightenment thinkers who did advocate direct democracy?


None were. In fact, Athens and her fate was the primary "Bad Example" in Enlightenment thinking. You're going to have the change the Enlightenment itself for an Athenian style democracy to be viewed in a positive light by the Founding Fathers.

There are also the size issues Dathi correctly points out. A polity the size of the US cannot be run via direct democracy with the technologies available in the 18th Century. Then there's the all to human laziness factor.

I happen to live in a town which still operates under town meeting rules and there's been a movement afoot for most of the last decade to replace that with a different form. Most of those who want to do so are "in-comers" who can't be bothered to spend one or two weeknights away from their fucking televisions in order to discuss and vote on the town budget.
 
I would argue that the Federalists weren't so far off when they labeled the Republican Party "Democrats", and that's not just Hamiltonian newspaper saber-rattling there's Washington talking about how you can't make a republican out of a Democrat.

It isn't hard to see the parallel between Southern gentry that advocated what is in effect closer to democracy than republicanism (a loose confederation of states based appeals to the direct involvement of the citizenry rather than a quasi-monarchistic central government), and the parallel between the combination of this populist/democratic viewpoint, the agrarian radicalism of the early Democrats, combined with their planter aristocracy elitism as compared to the Greek propertied class who were the only ones with the franchise in the ancient city-states. This idea of "republic" as a democracy of the natural aristocracy, that Athenian democracy is great as long as you keep the leather working demagogues from gaining power.

Considering the parallels also with the Jacobins in France, how elitist factions that took power into themselves in the Directory were in some ways the establishment face of the Enrages and others in the mobs who wanted direct democracy, and with the Democratic-Republican societies; the first real political clubs; in the United States.

I'd say the Athenian American timeline would be one where the Democratic-Republican societies in the North during Washington's first term, before the two parties get going proper-like, last and flourish as much as the ones down south. Maybe even a presidency of Peter Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania. But primarily, maybe have Washington and his hate of parties keep his protege Hamilton from forming the Federalists, and the Democratic-Republicans are more aptly able to springboard the Democratic-Republican Societies in the North into having a strong presence nationwide, not just the South and New York. Plus participation in a war on Britain on behalf of the First French Republic could help radicalize the populace, as could Washington being president and getting us in the war on Britain's side.

Less intelligentsia-oriented, Shay's Rebellion or the Whiskey Rebellion could lead to more decentralization and directer democracy.

Basically, I think you need to link the existing tradition of the Democrats with the town-hall democracy types of New England, and I think the early Democratic-Republican Societies, which bridged the regions, are a good way to do it.

Also, I wouldn't downplay the influence Whig-era philosophers other than the proper and anti-democratic Whigs. There was a pretty populistic Presbyterian minister from Scotland from around Adam Smith's time who was an influence on some of the Founding Fathers in terms of his writings and political thought, I'm blanking on the name though. Early social gospel preachers could be a way to galvanize the direct democratic tradition of New England alongside the existing democratic ideology of the Democratic-Republican party and the Southern plantocracy.
 
It isn't hard to see the parallel between Southern gentry that advocated what is in effect closer to democracy than republicanism (a loose confederation of states based appeals to the direct involvement of the citizenry rather than a quasi-monarchistic central government), and the parallel between the combination of this populist/democratic viewpoint, the agrarian radicalism of the early Democrats, combined with their planter aristocracy elitism as compared to the Greek propertied class who were the only ones with the franchise in the ancient city-states. This idea of "republic" as a democracy of the natural aristocracy, that Athenian democracy is great as long as you keep the leather working demagogues from gaining power.

Say what? In Athens, all adult male citizens regardless of their wealth had the full franchise. Of course, only male citizens were allowed to participate in legislation, but almost all western democracies until quite recently also restricted the franchise in the same way.
 
Say what? In Athens, all adult male citizens regardless of their wealth had the full franchise. Of course, only male citizens were allowed to participate in legislation, but almost all western democracies until quite recently also restricted the franchise in the same way.

Kind of. All male citizens were given suffrage, but when somewhere in the area of 75% of your population are non-citizen slaves, a voting aristocracy emerges nonetheless.
 
Kind of. All male citizens were given suffrage, but when somewhere in the area of 75% of your population are non-citizen slaves, a voting aristocracy emerges nonetheless.

That was the biggest defect in the Athenian democratic system, along with no suffrage for women. However, both of these problems have to do with the breadth of the franchise. If an Athenian-style direct democracy were to be instituted today, these particular problems would not exist.

I agree that full direct democracy is non-feasible for a large modern state, but selection of representatives for deliberative bodies by means of Athenian-style sortition instead of elections would be an excellent idea, eliminating numerous problems that currently exist (and no doubt introducing new ones, but on balance I think it would be an improvement).
 
Top