Is the United States of America Still a Republic?

Posted on January 7, 2021 by Ron Pavellas

Benjamin Franklin playing the Glass Armonica

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, the Constitution of the United States having finally been adopted, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic, if you can keep it,” he famously replied.

Have we kept it? Or is it something else now?

I offer here some bare facts and strong assertions. Let the discussion begin…

From republic, to empire, to… what?

According to George Friedman, the USA is now an empire, truly begun in the wake of World War Two. (Source).

Let’s look at the Roman Republic and how it evolved, and then imagine the possible implications in the continuing evolution of the USA.

First there was the Kingdom of Rome, beginning  2,770 years ago. It lasted 244 years, until the kingdom was overthrown by nobles representing the senate. The senate elected consuls for one-year terms to perform the executive functions of state. This arrangement lasted 482 years

The Roman Republic was the era of ancient Roman civilization beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom, traditionally dated to 509 BC, and ending in 27 BCE with the establishment of the Roman Empire. It was during this period that Rome’s control expanded from the city’s immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world.  (Source)

The Murder of Julius Caesar

The republic ended upon the murder of Julius Caesar, and the subsequent ascension of Caesar’s nephew, Octavian, to assume the role of the first emperor.

The Roman Empire lasted 503 years, until the end of the reign of Romulus Augustulus 1,541 years ago, in 476 CE, displaced by the Byzantine Empire in centered in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey).

To recap:

The Roman Kingdom lasted 244 years.

The Roman Republic lasted 482 years.

The Roman Empire lasted 503 years.

The Byzantine Empire, which replaced the Roman Empire, lasted 977 years, until it fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 CE.

The Ottoman Empire lasted for 465 years, until the end of World War One and the 1918 Armistice of Mudros.

How did Rome transform itself from a republic to an Empire?

  1. It exalted the executive function (from consul to emperor) over the senate function.
  2. It exalted the military function over the senate function and, occasionally, over the executive function.

What about the USA?

The USA was part of the British Empire, which began around 1500 CE.

  1. The USA was a republic for 169 years, from its founding in 1776, until the end of World War Two in 1945.
  2. The USA exerts military and economic and, therefore, political hegemony over much of the world, a trend starting with the Spanish-American War.
  3. The United State Senate has ceded more and more authority to the executive branch (president) than is provided for in the Constitution. (Source)
  4. The United States military is the largest and strongest in the world, and has been so since the Second World War. (Source)

How long will the USA last as an empire?

As shown above, the Roman Empire lasted around 500 years. During that time there were seventy-seven emperors. The length of their reigns varied (Source):

21           less than one year (usually assassinated or overthrown)
16           one to three years (often deposed or killed)
14           four to eight years (sometimes killed in battle or killed by elements of the Roman Army)
26           ten to forty years (sometimes died of natural causes)

This history shows us why Washington, D.C. announces so loudly and clearly that, upon the inauguration of each new president, there has been a peaceful transition of power.  Such peacefulness is unusual in the history of such transitions in a mature government.

If such peaceful transitions remain the norm for changes in its government, then the USA can last a very long time, unless a stronger force from without successfully challenges it. So far, the primacy of the civilian executive over the military function has not been challenged by elements of the military or by either house of Congress.

Can the United States ever return to being a republic instead of an empire, given the world contains other large nations with nuclear weapons?

In that prior empires have lasted no more than around one thousand years, shall we have the same expectations for the USA?

React and discuss…

Reading list:

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon

A Study of History (Abridged), by Arnold J. Toynbee

The Decline of the West,  by Oswald Spengler

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“Fruit ripened is awakening completed/The flower opens and worlds arise”

Posted on November 12, 2020 by Ron Pavellas

Representation of Gautama Buddha, ‘Shakyamuni’

The quotation above is a translation of the last two lines of the gatha of Dharma transmission by Punyamitra, the 26th Indian Buddhist Patriarch, given to his successor Punyatara, the 27th Patriarch, in a succession of patriarchs following the death of Shakyamuni (Gautama Buddha), the ‘enlightened one’.

The 27th Patriarch likewise, upon his imminent release, transmitted the Dharma to his successor, the 28th Indian Patriarch, Bodhidharma who ultimately left India around 500 CE to introduce the Dharma to China, as Chan Buddhism (later, Zen, in Japan). He thus became the first Buddhist patriarch of that country, and another succession of Patriarchs began there.

Representation of Bodhidharma, 28th Patriarch of Indian Buddhism, and First Patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China, Ca. 500 CE

The present account is about the Indian Patriarchs.

I have as my main reference the Records of the Transmission of the Lamp, the first of its 30 volumes.

As I read through the book, I recorded the four-line poems purportedly enunciated shortly before the death of Shakyamuni and the succeeding Patriarchs. Before each poem, or gatha, is a record of conversation between the Patriarch and others which, many times, included other poems.

My recording of the final gathas was an attempt to get at the essence of what the Patriarchs were ‘transmitting’, both to their successors and the world.

Here are a few more quotes to take us toward an understanding of what was, and continues to be, transmitted by Buddhist teachers.

Namu Dai Bosa (Nadja Van Ghelue)

Everyone must awaken the Dharma to themselves
Having awoken to it, nothing is not Dharma
– Second Patriarch

The Heart is like the realm of empty space
– Seventh Patriarch

As it is said to one who seeks—
That since there is nothing to acquire in the Dharma
Why cherish certainties one way or another?
– Nineteenth Patriarch

The heart flows with the cycles of the ten-thousand things
These cycles are truly mysterious
Follow the flow and know,
The True Nature is without joy or sorrow
– Twenty-second Patriarch

When speaking truly about knowing-awareness
The Knowing-awareness is all Heart
Since it is heart that is Knowing-awareness,
Knowing-awareness is the present moment
– Twenty-fourth Patriarch

The sage talks of knowing awareness
In the world it is neither right nor wrong
As I realize the True Nature now
It is neither a path nor a principle
– Twenty-fifth Patriarch

In Heart-ground are all seeds
Due to phenomena principle also arises
Fruit ripened is Bodhi completed
The flower opens and worlds arise
– Twenty-seventh Patriarch

Two excerpts from the extensive text which introduces the biographies and utterances of the Patriarchs:

“Emptiness may be better understood as Relatedness… Buddhism is based on a spiritual ‘practice of relativity’ applicable in any life situation. Quite simply the practice functions as if everything were related to everything else.”

“… if everything is related to everything else, then there cannot exist a self-subsisting essence of any kind that could be called an independent, nuclear, permanent Self.”

The ending passage of the introductory remarks:

Daisetz T. Suzuki (1870 – 1966) who brought Zen Buddhism to the West

“The future would see the Chan seed transplanted to Korea and Japan, to take root and flourish there… (These 30 volumes record) the spiritual activity of a thousand sages, the life artery of the heroic Patriarchs. Some seven hundred years of practice later and still going strong, Chan became, through the Japanese scholar Daisetz T. Suzuki, a movement known world-wide as ‘Zen’. Even those with a limited interest in the Zen of our times are often familiar with Song Dynasty Chan’s great verse, the first mature proclamation of its message to the world, which appeared in 1108 and reads:

A special transmission outside the teachings
Not standing on the written word
Pointing directly to the human heart
See into its nature and become Buddha

 

 

 

 

 

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