In the closing decades of the Roman Republic, the first sign of the collapse were the overlapping reigns of dictators¹ Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

The struggles between the optimates (the party of the patrician upper class) and the populares (the plebian reformers) had been going on for some time, but Marius, a successful general, managed through his reform of the legions, to create a largely plebian army which was more loyal to its general than the republic. Using this army, he seized control of Rome and began persecuting the optimates. To make  a long story short, the two generals went back and forth, one seizing control of Rome and persecuting the other's faction, then being called away to handle a foreign military crisis, allowing the other to regain Rome and begin the cycle again. It was repetitive enough that I recall making jokes about it in high school Latin class. In the end, Marius lost², and Sulla's optimates held control. And, in an unprecedented event³, Sulla actually laid down his dictatorial powers, resigned his office, and restored the Republic.

Why I bring up this rather cursory history lesson is that I am beginning to see some similarities to our present age. Ever since the unsuccessful impeachment of Bill Clinton, it seems both sides have determined that fighting electoral battles should not be limited to the ballot box. Granted, they have so far refrained from fighting in the streets, but the courts have become a very popular venue, whether it be threats of "war crimes" trials, or court challenges of election results (or one's eligibility to hold office), it seems our factions have become unwilling to let mere elections settle their arguments. Nor dot hey seem content with mere victory, it appears, with the debate over "torture" trials, that partisans are now planning some form of legal purges of their defeated opposition.

What makes this interesting is that there is no obvious reason for this bitterness. We have been just as factionally divided in the past. It is hard to imagine that our present "red-blue" division is more divisive than the division between Republicans and Democrats preceding the Civil War, or the division between Republicans and Democrats when Bryant managed to capture the Democrat party, or the division between Jacksonian Democrats and and the various proto-Whig successors to the Federalists, or even the divisions between Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians in the early pre-partisan days.  Yes, this is a contentious time, but no more so than many periods in our history. Think of the era of the violent labor disputes, of Sacco and Vanzetti, of the IWW, of the Haymarket riots, of the deportation of communists and anarchist, and tell em we are more divided. Or think about the period during the Civil War when northern cities were torn by draft riots, when Demcorats were pariahs suspected of southern sympathies, and northern racist groups, fearing fleeing slaves, formed various "civic groups" to ensure freed slaves did not settle in their towns. Was that more contentious than today? So, yes, we are divided, but no more so than in the past.

Nor did the Clinton impeachment mark a unique event. Yes, I see it as the turning point in modern politics, as it was followed by both the Gore challenge of the Florida results and started many on both sides considering impeachment proceedings against many despised rivals, but the event itself was not unique. We have had one other impeachment proceeding at the presidential level, and narrowly avoided another, and while both times it had an impact on the political climate which followed, neither launched the sort of extra-political struggles we have seen in recent days.

So, what happened?

I think there are two changes which made today's climate different from the past. One is relatively recent, and one more remote, but between them, they created a climate more similar to the final days of Republican Rome than the first century of the American Republic. And because of these changes, rather than the more restrained political sparring of Jefferson and Hamilton or Jackson and Clay, we have begun to breed our own crop of Marii and Sullae.

So, let us deal with the more recent change first. And that change, while occurring over a long period, came to fruition in 1968, at the Democrat convention. Many have argued that the character of the Democrat party changed in 1968. It went from being the moderately left party of unions modest reform to a party captured by its more left wing elements, and that is probably true. Even after the Clinton "reforms", the party does largely remain captive to its more left-leaning elements, but that is not why 1968 is significant.

What matters in 1968, and int he years immediately before and after, is that it marked a change in US politics, a change whose significance was not immediately obvious. But it was the point where riots became acceptable. Prior to that point riots were, by and large, seen as something unacceptable, a cause for police or military intervention. However, 1968 changed all that, thanks to two sets of riots. First, the riots following the King assassination. As the event initiating the riots was seen as almost justifying these acts, many on the left did not feel the reticence they normally would in endorsing such actions. And so, for a brief moment, riots became politically acceptable. And this was seized by the left leaning groups which staged the riots at the Democrat convention. Claiming to express a "justified outrage", they used the moral ambiguity the King riots had introduced and tried to control the party through massive violence, disguised as "civil disobedience".

And it worked.

And once they got away with it, American politics changed. Where before, intimidation, ballot fraud and do on had been common only in a few urban settings, and even there had been seen as a shameful excess, the 1968 riots introduced to America the political climate of the Wiemar Republic, where force, in the guise of "protests"⁴ or "civil disobedience" could be used to shift the political tide. Had the 1968 riots never happened, our present climate of "activist groups" like ACORN, of regular large scale protests, of WTO riots, of "activism" and so on would not exist. Groups would not argue that they are right because they have more members,  people would not "take to the streets", trying to win an argument by the implicit threat that their numbers suggest. Politics was far from perfect before the 60's, and the unions and others did still use force, threats and protests, but those activities were considered unacceptable in mainstream politics prior to the 1960's and especially 1968. So there was a clear change there.

But if the 1968 riots changed the climate, making it acceptable to settle political issues without recourse to persuasion, to the ballot, to a struggle of ideas. If that set the stage for court fights, threats of purges and dreams of impeachments, if that created a climate where one party could call the members of the opposition idiots and evil, that is well and good. But even if such things are permissible, why did they start taking place?

And that is where the earlier change becomes important. That is the change that truly made us like Rome.

You see, prior to some point in the late 19th or early 20th century, the US was largely a confederation of states. Granted, Lincoln violated that concept when he violently opposed the withdrawal of the southern states from that compact. But even after Lincoln, most continued to see the Union as just that, a union of states, and most power was still held on the state level. However, that division in itself provided a check. As one could easily seize a single state through unscrupulous politics, but that left the party or individual only on of many equals. It was simply impossible to seize enough power to redirect the US. Our federal system protected us from abuse. One could either seize the federal government and hold evry limited pwoer, or absolutely rule a state, but have only a small voice in overall federal policy. You just could not become dictator.

But, between 1890 and 1934, that changed⁵, and we became more like Rome. Rome, you see, while a republic, had few safeguards against the abuse of power. The Republic largely relied upon an innate suspicion of accumulating too much power, as well as the traditions and civic spirit of the citizens to protect it. And for about 200 years it worked. But, at the end of that period, as the plebian and agrarian reform movements began, and elicited a backlash form the patricians, the populares-optimates struggle led to both factions attempting to seize power to defeat the other, and, once it started, there simply was no mechanism to stop them . And as those whose traditions were supposed to defend the Republic were all involve din the struggle, they made "exceptions" to allow their faction a slight edge, meaning no one was left to ensure that the powers gained were not abused. In the end, Rome proved to have granted the government too much power, to have too few limits on that power, and that was its downfall.

Which is a pattern we began to follow. Starting with the expansion of the interstate commerce clause in 1890 to include price regulation and antitrust laws, followed by the weakening of state power in the 1914-1918 period, by the creation of a federal income tax, the popular election of senators, and the creation of the federal reserve, and ending with FDR's massive expansion of federal authority and the high court's decision that there were effectively no safeguards to protect against federal meddling in economic matters, the federal government took on almost limitless powers. And that set the stage for our modern Marii and Sullae. After all, no one would fight to be the figurehead of a weak federal government, but once it is a powerful centralized state, that office looks a lot more tempting.

So, why didn't these bitter fights start in 1944? Why were Republicans not calling Truman "Chimpy McNukeBoy"? Why wasn't the left calling for an Eisenhower impeachment?

The answer is because, while the government had the power following FDR, it did not have the tools to wield it. Truman and Eisenhower were not small government activists, but they were not the true believers FDR had been. Following the end of WWI and the Korean War, the public mood was for a return to the good times they imagined had existed in the 20's. And the government was in no position to oppose them, meaning both Truman and Eisenhower, and even Kennedy, were happy to scale back government, leave that power unused, and generally return to a more Wilson-like big government, rather than the truly expansive FDR vision.

It was only with the coming of the "Great Society", the explosion of the size and scope of government that accompanied Johnson's presidency, that the government gained the ability to use all that power. And only then that it became tempting. That this coincides with the riots which ended the restrictions on how power is gained (or wielded) may not be accidental.

Which leaves one final question. Why didn't the bitterness start in 1970 rather than 2000? And that is a bit harder to answer, though not that hard.

Think back to 1970. Or 1974. What happened? Nixon, rankling at limits on spending, had removed the final connection between gold and the dollar, and started us on a destructive inflationary spiral. To resolve this, he imposed disastrous price controls. It was a policy destined to destroy the economy, and one Carter continued. At that time, who would have wanted to hold office? True you could have held total power, but with conditions so bad, who wanted it? It wasn't until Reagan got us back in something approaching normal shape that the power of federal office became attractive once more.

And, honestly, there were some early signs of brutal competition as soon as Reagan left office. Look at the Clarence Thomas hearings. Or even some of the nasty caricatures of Reagan promoted by the left. Yes, I still say the real brutal fighting began with Clinton's impeachment, but even int he mid 1980's the signs were there that the combination of excess power and lack of standards of what is acceptable in politics would lead to very nasty infighting.

And so, thanks to our unlimited power and our lack of restraint in political fighting, we are now creating our own Sulla and Marius. Oh, they have not yet resorted to physical battle -- though that is not certain to last forever --but even in their legislative and media struggles they are doing enough harm. By making courts the elector of last resort, by threatening purges whenever offices change hands, and by making the world ever more lawless, they manage to destroy the two centuries of stable government from which we have benefited so much.

The solution is obvious, if unlikely. We need to remove all the excess power we have given tot he federal government. Return to a federal system with limited scope and all this will go away. But until then, perhaps there is an intermediate step that could do some good. It would not hurt us to remind everyone, our politicians, our candidates, and ourselves, that whatever you turn against those you have defeated, or what you direct against incumbents while out of power, can one day be used against you as well. So perhaps we should remember, though currently anything at all is permissible, perhaps it is not a good idea to plumb every depth, and try every last stratagem. Unless you are certain your enemy will be defeated, never to return, then whatever you did to him, he may one day do to you in turn.

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1. We get our term "dictator" from Latin. Though in Roman history, dictator was actually a title of office. During an emergency, the Senate could issue a senatus consultum authorizing the consuls to appoint a dictator. Usually this was one of the consuls, but that was not required. For six months, the dictator had virtually unlimited authority. He was usually appointed to deal with a military emergency, though at the end of the republic, Caesar had himself appointed dictator repeatedly, using the power to rule as, effectively, an absolute monarch. And as his successors also adopted the powers of the dictator, that is how the word came into English in its modern meaning. (Who says you can't find anything informative on the internet?)

2. Though, in the very long run, Marius actually won, as Gaius Julius Caesar was a supporter of the populares, persecuted when Sulla took Rome and forced into hiding. (While Pompey was the spokesman of the optimates in the triumvirate.) So, in the longer run, the Empire was eventually established by a partisan of Marius (Caesar) who defeated a partisan of the optimates (Pompey). But during the lifetime of Marius and Sulla it was generally accepted that the optimates won.

3. The only similar event I can recall was Francisco Franco's restoration of the constitutional monarchy in 1975, though he only did so on his death. I have a hard time recalling any other dictator who voluntarily laid aside his power and restored a non-authoritarian government.

4. It is strange to think about, but prior to 1968, how many protests were there? There were union strikes, and small local protests, but, excluding the Berkley "Free Speech Movement", itself seen as an aberrant event, how many large scale "protests" made news? Protesting was not an acceptable activity, being associated with fringe politics. 1968 changed that and made protests acceptable, essentially bringing sheer numbers to the fore as an argument, where before no one would admit to arguing by force of numbers alone.

5.  As I described in "A Passing Thought", it is hard to tell when this change took place. The first hints of massive government predate even 1890, but 1890 is probably the earliest overt change. But I can't tell when between 1890 and 1934 we truly changed form a mostly free federal system to a centralized, mostly unlimited government.

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POSTSCRIPT

I have cited them numerous times, but once more, here are the posts concerning my ideal government, explaining my support of limited power, economic stability, consistency and federalism:

Why I Am Not A Libertarian
My Vision of Government
My Vision of Government Part II
The Benefits of Federalism
Monetary Issues Made Simple Part I
Monetary Issues Made Simple Part II
The Shortcomings of Pragmatism
Pragmatism Revisited
Predictability
"Empathy" Threatens not "Justice" but Predictability
Living Large During the Good Times
"Fair Trade"
Planning For Imperfection
Fairness and the Free Market
Transparency, Corruption and Reform

I could probably cite a dozen more, but these are the best of the lot.

UPDATE

I was trying to think of another dictator who resigned, and was reminded of Diocletian, who did retire from supreme power to private life, but he did so only to hand over power to two equally dictatorial successors. So Sulla is still unique in not only retiring, but giving power back to the civil government.

UPDATE II

I swear I did not read the WSJ editorial page before writing. Yet it seems today's essays were almost entirely matched by topics in the Journal. For example, their essay on Biden's obstructionist policies concerning judicial nominations shows almost perfectly the beginnings of this extra-political squabbling. Somehow, I had forgotten the Bork confirmation when writing about the early phases.