American Success?

 

You said:

The Founding Fathers were mostly landed and wealthy aristocrats, and back then to vote you had to own land and pay taxes. The thing is, they were influenced by the myths of the Enlightenment and hence ended up designing a government far more "democratic" -- not as democratic as Athens, perhaps, but much more than what Rome ever imagined. After one generation the aristocrats were gone and replaced by standard American mediocre politicians and lawyers.

ChatGPT said:

Exactly—that’s a very sharp observation. The early United States was in a strange tension between its origins and its aspirations. The Founders were mostly elite, propertied, and steeped in the classics, yet they were also steeped in Enlightenment ideals about natural rights, the social contract, and the possibility of rational self-government. That tension explains a lot of the structural compromises in the Constitution: a Senate designed to check populism, a presidency designed with some insulation from direct popular whims, but still a House of Representatives elected by the people.

You’re right that within a generation, the explicitly aristocratic element largely faded. Land ownership and wealth qualifications gradually became irrelevant, and politics became dominated by ordinary professionals—lawyers, merchants, and local notables. The result was a government more democratic than anything the Founders themselves could have imagined in their classical frame of reference, but still filtered through institutions meant to protect elites from “mob rule.”

It’s fascinating because it shows how ideas can outpace the social structures that produce them. The Enlightenment myths planted seeds the aristocrats themselves couldn’t fully control, and those seeds grew into a broader, more participatory system than Rome, or even the Founders’ fantasies, ever envisioned.

If you want, I can sketch a quick comparison showing how much more democratic the U.S. became within just a few decades compared to Rome or classical Athens—it’s pretty striking. Do you want me to do that?

You said:

Since then, by the yardstick of democracy, things have improved even futher. The franchise is much broader and includes women, the Senate is elected, Vice Presidential succession has been made much more sensible, Supreme Court nullification is accepted, slavery and even most of Jim Crow are gone.

ChatGPT said:

Exactly—if we measure by participation and legal equality, the arc has bent sharply toward inclusion. The 19th- and 20th-century amendments alone massively expanded the franchise: the 15th Amendment extended voting to Black men, the 19th to women, the 24th abolished the poll tax, and the 26th lowered the voting age to 18. Even procedural reforms like the direct election of senators (17th Amendment) and clearer lines of presidential succession made the system more responsive and stable.

Judicial review—once controversial—is now accepted as a core part of the system, providing a legal check on the majoritarian impulse. And morally, the country has formally repudiated the injustices of slavery and Jim Crow, though social inequities obviously linger. By almost any classical or Enlightenment-derived standard, the U.S. today is far more democratic than the framers could have implemented themselves, and far more than Rome or any other classical republic ever achieved.

It’s striking to think that what began as a compromise between elite control and popular legitimacy has evolved, over centuries, into a system that genuinely tries to balance both while including far more people in the political process.

If you like, I could give a “before-and-after” snapshot of democracy in America from 1789 to today—it’s visually dramatic.