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about separation of powers are not allowed to stand against the fact
that the legislative, executive and judicial powers are not clearly sepa–
rated; practice, not words, shows who votes, who rules, what liberties
citizens possess. "The hard-headed framers of our Constitution were not
as ingenious in speculation and in
~nespun
definitions of ideas as Socrates
and his companions.. . . They refused to try by ideal standards the fruits
of necessity and the frailties of human beings. They sought to institute
a workable government and a workable society."
The general subject is announced in an introduction: "Suppose
then we set down or fix as our center of concern the Republic, our
Republic, as strengthened, developed, and governed under the Constitu–
tion of the United States." The chief theme, however-and this is
proving a surprise to readers who remember how close to economic de–
terminism many of Beard's past writings have been-is an interpretation
and defense of "constitutionalism": "in my judgment, no other theme
of national policy is so important for us as constitutionalism-the civilian
way of living together in the Republic, the way of preserving our liber–
ties and the decencies of social intercourse against the frenzies of the
despotic and violent temper. How to preserve the idea of constitutional
processes ... that is the task of the present and future, a task of civiliza–
tion, supreme over all others."
Around this subject and this theme the discussions of the seminars
are arranged: a series of calm, informative, wise reflections on the
nature and history of government, particularly of the government of
this country. The defense of constitutionalism, naturally, leads to modi–
fications and even reversals of Beard's earlier judgments. The economic
factor diminishes in importance; he now defends Hamilton and, on the
who!<?, the Supreme Court; and, in a direct reversal, takes the side of
Lincoln against the radical Republicans.
Many of the discussions are illuminating in detail, but the impres–
sion of the whole is unsatisfying. The truth is that Beard has not got
so far away from Plato as he insists, that Plato is
le~s
purely metaphysical
and Beard less entirely empirical than he would seem to believe. Plato's
republic is not, really, a mere ideal Form but rather an idealization of
ancient Sparta, which Plato half knew and half imagined, in contrast
to his own defeated and corrupt city. Beard's republic and his constitu–
tion are not, really, this actual nation and its actual Constitution but,
in part at least, an idealized version of this nation's past-not its present
and future-and of an eternal, most Platonic Form of constitutionalism.
"The principle of constitutionalism, composed of these four essen–
tial elements, is in eternal contradiction to the principle of authoritarian,
totalitarian, dictatorial government. . .. That principle is a permanent
principle even though constitutions as documents may be scrapped or
burned, and the principle of tyranny, however phrased, set up in its
place. The principle of constitutional government will always exist, we
may assume, as an idea or ideal, to be contrasted with the authoritarian
