A republic only survives if virtue prevails

I was reading Baron de Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws today. He says something that we ought to heed very carefully when he says in Book III that virtue is essential to a republic. Really, this cannot be said strongly enough - a republic will not survive without virtue. I have thought for a long time that our biggest mistake as a nation was when we started electing known liars to public office.

If we were really serious about preserving our republic, then any candidate, caught in a lie of any magnitude whatsoever, would be absolutely unelectable. A person’s moral character is more important than their policy goals. (Yes, policy is important, but it is second to honesty). But we as citizens would have to practice rigorous honesty ourselves; it is absurd and unworkable to demand a virtue we are bankrupt in.

It is because virtue requires moral strength that democracies and republics are not for the weak; as the people themselves become weak, the country itself will crumble. A dictatorship or monarchy may survive a weak people, because the strong-man at the top supplies the strength that is lacking in his people. In a republic it must be the other way around. The people must supply the strength by refusing to tolerate morally weak leaders.

Moral integrity is the keystone for all of us. In the person of a public official, it is the keystone because all of the abuses we are seeing now - influence peddling, bribery schemes, twisting of the judicial system, weaponizing of the bureaucracy - are impossible if integrity is adequately present. With integrity, few crimes are possible. Without integrity, every crime is possible, and more than that, inevitable.

So how do we save this republic of the United States? We have to rediscover that we own back-bone, and act accordingly. Stubbornly and dogmatically refuse to vote for anyone who is dishonest.