This January marked two momentous occasions in the life of our republic: the funeral of Jimmy Carter and the second inauguration of Donald Trump. Although in some ways the two presidents could not be more different, the pageantry around the celebrations of a life well-lived and a president newly sworn into office is a reminder of the importance of statesmanship in our constitutional system. The men and women who hold elected office matter because “We the People” put our trust in them to guide the ship of state.
Sadly, that trust has deteriorated to the point of crisis. A Pew Research Center study from 2023, for example, found that 76% of Americans rate the quality of political candidates as poor. We are losing faith in our institutions in part because we are losing faith in the people who elected them.
In a recent essay for National Affairs, I laid out the importance of preparing leaders for public service in our self-governing republic. If we are dissatisfied with our political leaders, then we ought to make political leadership formation a top priority once again.
To George Washington, the success of the American republic depended on certain ways of thinking among the people, especially among leaders. Not long before the commencement of the Constitutional Convention, Washington wrote to James Madison of his hope that
the foederal governmt., may be considered with that calm and deliberate attention which the magnitude of it so loudly calls for at this critical moment. Let prejudices, unreasonable jealousies, and local interest yield to reason and liberality. Let us to look to our National character, and to things beyond the present period…. Wisdom, and good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending storm.
At the outset of this pivotal moment in history, Washington identified the categories of intellectual capital that are necessary for the framing of a constitution: “calm and deliberate attention,” “reason,” “liberality,” a focus on “National character” and on the future, and finally, “Wisdom, and good examples.”
Washington thought educating citizens to practice these habits was so important he advocated strongly for the establishment of a national university. He believed that bringing together Americans from all corners of the country and walks of life to pursue liberal learning and civic friendship would shape our national identity and form the rising generation of leaders for the new republic (for further reading on this, see George Thomas’s excellent book “The Founders and the Ideas of a National University”). While the United States never exactly followed Washington’s plan, the need for formal and informal civic education was widely understood and shaped the missions of many of our nation’s educational institutions.
Throughout our history, political leaders have also gained valuable intellectual formation and leadership skills through vocational experience as well as civic involvement in the community, and through learning “on the job” at one level of service that is transferrable to succeeding public roles.
While the habits of self-government, including statesmanship, may have been on the decline in recent decades, there are reasons to be optimistic about a renaissance in the kinds of political studies that are essential to forming statesmen and stateswomen. I provide some of these reasons in my National Affairs article, but I will highlight one in particular here: in higher education, we are witnessing a renaissance in civic thought and leadership studies. These include a number of new centers and colleges at public universities including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Florida, and the University of Texas at Austin. All are dedicated to the study of American civics, public leadership, and civil discourse, along with a growing rediscovery of citizen formation, goals that are being followed in other influential corners of academia like Johns Hopkins and Stanford.
We need to be intentional about preparing men and women for the work of statesmanship in a free society. A republic requires the active participation of its citizens, some of whom must rise to leadership. The approaching 250th anniversary of national independence offers a host of opportunities for us to pass along our civic tradition to young Americans. Let us seize this opportunity. The future of the country depends on it.
