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XII. Democracy, Leadership and Culture
- The Catholic University of America Press
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Democracy, Leadership, and Culture XII If popular rule without effective constitutional restraints is an ethically unacceptable notion, popular rule under such restrictions offers no guarantee that moral motives will be promoted . Constitutional restraints are a necessary but not sufficient condition for the furtherance of community. Everything turns on the absence or presence of what I have called the spirit of constitutionalism. It will emerge only in a people of advanced spiritual culture. Referring to the United States but making a general observation , Rene de Visme Williamson argues that "the Constitution functions as a mirror for the national conscience." 1 The constitutional norm serves as a constant reminder of the contrast between the values endorsed by the people in its better moments, when it looks at politics in the perspective of the moral end, and the imperfect, sometimes degrading practice of day-to-day politics. The law thus has amoral function. John Middleton Murry writes, "Just as the democratic society freely chooses its government, so the democratic citizen must freely choose to do his duty to the commonweal. He puts his conscience in control of his actions. He obeys the law, not as an external command, but as the expression of his I Rene de Visme Williamson, Independence and Involvement (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964), 126-27. 199 200 DEMOCRACY AND THE ETHICAL LIFE own better self, which wills to act in obedience to a law which its reason recognizes to be necessary." 2 Representative institutions, which are central to any constitutional system, do not by themselves assure the moral dignity of democratic politics. The people must be not only able to recognize but also willing to give their support to leaders who have a genuine concern for the common good. That presupposes a measure of moral attainment and perspicacity as well as trust. According to Williamson, "People who have no ideals can have no representatives." 3 Representation in the morally significant sense implies a shared understanding of the ultimate goal of life and also an awareness that some men are better equipped for leadership than others. The true criterion is not wealth, position, or birth, but a special type of ability. The good representative is able to represent not the lower, partisan selves of his fellow citizens, but their will to community. The willingness to put this kind of trust in elected leaders, to the point of respecting their judgment when it goes contrary to one's own wishes of the moment, is essential to the fulfillment of the higher goal of democracy. To be worthy of such trust, a popular representative cannot be just an average, ordinary person. In addition to prudence and skill, he should have in even greater measure than those who elect him a sense of the moral purpose of politics. In a position to lead and not follow only, he ought to be able to rise above the popular passions and biases of the hour and even of his own period in history. Let there be no hedging or equivocation on this point: constitutional democracy implies and requires leadership. Contrary to various utopian dreams, every possible form of gov2 John Middleton Murry, "The Moral Foundation of Democracy," Fortnightly (September, 1947), 168. 3 Williamson, Independence and Involvement, 198. [34.227.191.136] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:32 GMT) DEMOCRACY, LEADERSHIP, AND CULTURE 201 ernment will have its "elites." The democratic ideal is not to do away with leaders, but to make them as numerous as possible and to create the circumstances in which a commitment to the common good is encouraged among them. John Hallowell rightly observes, "It is not a characteristic feature of democracy that it dispenses with authority; that is, instead, characteristic of tyranny. There can be no freedom without authority, for without authority freedom degenerates into license." 4 Here, constitutionalism plays an important role. It places restraints on the inclination to misuse power both among elected leaders and the electorate. These restrictions, however , become morally effective only if they form part of a whole pattern of high aspirations in the people. Reinhold Niebuhr recognizes the importance of moral culture when he writes: While political strategies deal with outer and social checks upon the egoism of men and of nations and while no individual or collective expression of human vitality is ever moral enough to obviate the necessity of such checks, it is also true that outer checks are insufficient if some inner moral checks upon human ambition are not...