Liberalism and Republicanism Together Made for a Stronger Worldview
It seems fairly clear that the two separate doctrines—liberalism and republicanism—were fused together by the English opposition writers and the American revolutionaries because together they made for a stronger, and reasonably coherent, worldview. Liberalism, as such, had no theory of government. The French physiocratic school of laissez-faire liberal economists had no better political theory or plan than simply to get the King to sweep away barriers to trade. Republicanism, as such, had no theory of individual rights. Writers like Rousseau showed how unalloyed republicanism can easily justify militaristic and authoritarian rule on the model of ancient Sparta or the Roman Republic. (The “radical phase” of the French Revolution teaches this lesson very well.) By combining the two ideologies, the Anglo-Americans forged a powerful outlook favorable to liberty and limited government.
Can a republican talk about the limits to human authority without using the notion of "rights" as it is understood by liberals? (Or, is all rights talk inherently liberal? I don't think so, but we also have to look at how it was explained in the past, as opposed to applying our own definitions to historical texts.) And if republicanism is linked to communitarianism, how can it be synthesized with liberalism without internal contradictions? Perhaps the early Americans were influenced by both streams of thought and did not pay much attention to consistency. If so, is it too early to conclude that there efforts were doomed to failure? But I think that one can think and legislate in terms of rights without being a liberal. Can I find evidence that this was true of some early Americans?
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