Michael: Alright Kevin, pop quiz. If America's Founding Fathers had a shared Spotify playlist, what would be on it? Kevin: Based on this book? Probably just hours of Cicero's speeches on repeat, with maybe one angry sea shanty from John Adams. Definitely no party music. Michael: That's not far off! Today we’re diving into First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country by Thomas E. Ricks. Kevin: Ah, so it’s a book about the original super-fans. Michael: Exactly. And Ricks is the perfect person for this—he's a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, known for his deep analysis of military and political history. He’s not just a historian; he’s someone who has spent his life thinking about how ideas translate into action on the battlefield and in government. Kevin: Okay, so he's saying they were all just a bunch of classics nerds? How deep does this rabbit hole go? Michael: It goes all the way to the bottom. Ricks argues that this classical influence wasn't just a hobby; it was their core programming, their entire mental operating system. And today, we're going to explore how that ancient software shaped America. First, we'll look at how the founders were 'programmed' by Greece and Rome. Then, we'll see what happened when that idealistic system crashed into the brutal reality of war. And finally, we'll examine how the 'Revolution of 1800' basically uninstalled that classical software for good.

Michael: So, to your question, Kevin, this wasn't just about them reading a few old books. The founders were swimming in a sea of classicism. It was the pop culture of the 18th-century elite. Kevin: I'm having a hard time picturing that. It sounds so academic and stuffy. How does that actually show up in real life? Michael: Well, let's take John Adams. When he was courting his future wife, Abigail Smith, they didn't just write love letters. They wrote to each other using classical pseudonyms. He was 'Lysander,' a Spartan general, and she was 'Diana,' the Roman goddess. Kevin: Hold on. He was trying to woo her by pretending to be an ancient Spartan? That’s the most intense version of 'nerd-flirting' I've ever heard. It’s like quoting Shakespeare in your Tinder DMs. Michael: It is! But for them, it was a shared language of honor, love, and intellect. It showed they were part of the same cultural world. And this wasn't just for personal stuff. This classical mindset was everywhere. Ricks tells this incredible story about the Continental Army during the brutal winter at Valley Forge. Kevin: Oh, I know this scene. Starving, freezing, morale at rock bottom. They must have been desperate. Michael: Utterly. And what does George Washington, their commander, approve to boost morale? They stage a play. And not just any play—they put on Cato, a Tragedy. It’s a famous play about a Roman statesman who chooses death over living under the tyranny of Julius Caesar. Kevin: You're kidding. They're literally starving and their big morale-booster is an ancient Roman tragedy? Not, say, extra rations? Michael: No, it was the play. Imagine these soldiers, wrapped in rags, some probably illiterate, watching their comrades act out scenes about choosing "liberty or death." One of the famous lines from the play is a character regretting he has "only one life to give for his country." These weren't just abstract ideas; they were the very principles these men believed they were fighting and dying for. Washington himself was a huge admirer of Cato. Kevin: That’s incredible. It reframes the whole thing. They didn't just think they were fighting a tax revolt; they saw themselves as reenacting a grand, Roman struggle for the soul of a republic. Michael: Precisely. And at the heart of that struggle was a single, all-important concept: 'virtue'. Kevin: Okay, you have to define that for me. When I hear 'virtue,' I think of personal morality, like being honest or pious. Michael: That’s the modern meaning. For the founders, drawing from the Romans, 'virtue' was a political concept. The historian Joyce Appleby called it the "lynchpin" of public life. It meant a relentless devotion to the public good, placing the welfare of the republic above any personal interest, ambition, or even family. A virtuous leader was one who would sacrifice everything for the state. Kevin: So it’s not about being a good person in private, it’s about being a good public servant. Michael: Exactly. And they saw George Washington as the ultimate embodiment of this. He was their Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who was given absolute power, saved the republic, and then voluntarily gave it all up to go back to his farm. He didn't cling to power. That, to them, was the peak of virtue. This idea was the bedrock of their entire experiment. They believed a republic could only survive if its leaders and citizens were virtuous. Kevin: That sounds like a beautiful, noble idea. It also sounds incredibly fragile. What happens when human nature kicks in?

Michael: And that’s the exact question that brings us to our second topic. That noble, classical ideal of virtue slammed head-first into the wall of reality. And the man who saw the crash coming most clearly was Washington himself. Kevin: I'm guessing this happened back at Valley Forge? It seems like a good place for a reality check. Michael: It was. While his officers were talking about virtue holding the army together, Washington was writing frantic letters to Congress. He saw that idealism was not enough to stop his men from deserting or starving. In one letter, he wrote, and this is a direct quote that Ricks highlights, "Men may speculate as they will—they may talk of patriotism... but, whoever builds upon it, as a sufficient basis, for conducting a long and bloody War, will find themselves deceived in the end." Kevin: Wow. That's the great hero of the revolution basically saying that patriotism is not enough. That's a huge shift. Michael: It's a seismic shift. He goes on to say that a lasting war "must be aided by a prospect of interest or some reward." He realized that to keep the army fighting, you had to appeal to their self-interest—land, money, a pension. You couldn't just rely on their selfless love of country. Kevin: So he’s admitting that the classical model is failing in real-time. Virtue is a great ideal, but self-interest is what actually gets people out of bed in the morning, especially when it's freezing and you haven't eaten. Michael: Exactly. And this brings us to the other great pragmatist of the era: James Madison. If Washington learned this lesson on the battlefield, Madison learned it by studying history. He spent years before the Constitutional Convention studying every failed republic in history, Greek and Roman. Kevin: He was basically doing a post-mortem on dead governments. What did he find? Michael: He found that they all died from the same disease: faction. Small, self-interested groups tearing the country apart for their own gain. The classical answer to this, the one people like Adams clung to, was that you needed more virtue. You needed to educate people to be less selfish. Kevin: And Madison disagreed? Michael: Madison thought that was naive. In his masterpiece, Federalist 10, he makes a radical argument. He says you can't get rid of factions, because their causes are "sown in the nature of man." People will always have different opinions, different amounts of property, and different interests. Kevin: Wait, so Madison basically said, 'Forget virtue, let's just accept that everyone is selfish and build a system around that?' That sounds incredibly cynical... and also incredibly modern. Michael: It was both! He argued that instead of trying to eliminate self-interest, you should control its effects. And his solution was a large, extended republic. In a small republic, like ancient Athens, a single faction could easily get a majority and oppress everyone else. But in a huge, diverse country like America, you'd have so many different factions—farmers, merchants, bankers, different religious groups—that they would all check and balance each other. No single group could ever take total control. Kevin: That’s genius. He’s not trying to make people into virtuous Romans. He's weaponizing their selfishness to protect the system. He’s creating a political ecosystem where ambition counteracts ambition. Michael: You've nailed it. It was a profound break from the classical model. He was designing a government for real, flawed human beings, not for idealized Roman super-citizens. And that pragmatic, almost cynical, view of human nature is what ultimately defined the Constitution and set America on a completely different path. Kevin: It feels like that’s the moment the American experiment really began—not by copying the past, but by learning from its failures and inventing something new.

Michael: Exactly. And that invention, that new American way of thinking, is what leads us to the final act: the death of the classical model in the "Revolution of 1800." Kevin: You mean the election of 1800, when Jefferson beat Adams. Why was that so revolutionary? It was just an election. Michael: Jefferson himself called it a "revolution in the principles of our government." It was the moment America decisively turned away from the old, classical, Federalist world of order, hierarchy, and elite virtue, and embraced a new, messier, more populist and democratic future. Kevin: And John Adams was the face of that old world. Michael: He was. Adams and the Federalists were terrified of the "mob." They believed in a natural aristocracy, that the wise and virtuous should rule. When they saw the rise of partisan newspapers and what they considered slanderous attacks, they panicked. Their response was the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Kevin: Right, the laws that basically made it illegal to criticize the government. Michael: Yes, it was a classic, old-world response to dissent: crush it. They saw it as protecting the republic from the chaos of faction. But the American people saw it as tyranny. It backfired spectacularly and painted the Federalists as anti-liberty elites. Kevin: This sounds so familiar. The educated, established class being shocked and appalled that the 'common people' have their own ideas and are expressing them loudly. Adams's reaction feels very 21st century. Michael: It really does. He was a man out of time. He couldn't understand this new world. After he lost, he wrote bitterly that he was "degraded and disgraced by my Country" and that he had exchanged "honors & virtues, for manure" by returning to his farm. He felt the people had failed a crucial test of virtue. Kevin: Meanwhile, Jefferson is riding this new wave of populism. Michael: He’s not just riding it; he’s channeling it. Jefferson was more of a Romantic than a classicist. He once told Adams, "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." He trusted the people, or at least he projected that image. His victory wasn't just a change in policy; it was a change in the entire political culture. It was the end of the idea that America should be led by a class of virtuous, Cincinnatus-like gentlemen-farmers. Kevin: It was the beginning of messy, partisan, popular democracy. The America we recognize today. Michael: Precisely. The classical world of the founders, with its emphasis on disinterested virtue and its fear of faction, couldn't survive contact with the reality of American life. The country was too big, too diverse, and too ambitious. The election of 1800 was the moment the nation chose Madison's pragmatic machine over Adams's classical ideal.

Kevin: So, what's the big takeaway here? Did the founders fail because their classical model was flawed, or did America just outgrow it? Michael: I think Ricks would say it's a bit of both. The founders weren't just philosophers; they were practical men trying to apply an ancient blueprint to a radically new world. That classical blueprint gave them a noble vision—a language of liberty, a model of public service, and a deep-seated belief in the importance of virtue. Without it, there might not have been a revolution at all. Kevin: But the blueprint was too rigid. It couldn't handle the scale and the messiness of a real, continental nation. Michael: Exactly. The classical world was made up of small, homogenous city-states. It had no answer for religious diversity, for rampant capitalism, for the kind of fierce individualism that was brewing in America. And it certainly had no moral answer for the hypocrisy of slavery, which Ricks calls their most disastrous inheritance from the ancient world. Kevin: So the real American genius wasn't in copying the Romans, but in figuring out when to stop. Michael: That's the core of it. The true breakthrough, pioneered by Washington on the battlefield and perfected by Madison in the Constitution, was creating a system that could function without demanding that every citizen be a perfectly virtuous Roman. It was a system designed to endure the passions, factions, and self-interest of real people. It was built for the long haul. Kevin: Ricks leaves us with a pretty powerful question at the end of the book, doesn't he? He points out that the founders, even the pragmatists, believed a republic ultimately needed some level of public virtue to survive. We've built a system that largely runs on self-interest. Can that last forever? Michael: That's the question that hangs in the air. Or to put it another way, do we still need a little bit of that old Roman 'public good' to hold it all together? It’s a question the founders asked, and one we’re still trying to answer today. Kevin: A sobering thought to end on. It makes you realize their struggles are, in many ways, still our own. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.