The Senate of the Roman Republic: Addresses on the History of the Roman Constitution

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THE SENATE OF THE

ROMAN

REPUBLIC

United States Senator Robert C. Byrd

THE SENATE OF THE

ROMAN

Addresses on the History of Constitutionalism

ROBERT

C.

BYRD

United States Senator

U.S.

Government Printing Washington

Office

REPUBLIC

Roman

103d Congress, 2d Session Con. Res. 68 U.S. Senate S.

Document 103-23 Government Printing

Senate U.S.

Office

Washington: 1995

Eagle with spread wings standing on thunderbolt,

cover design:

Gold

coin, ca. 211-209 B.C. (14

mm.,

ROMA.

3.42 gm.). British

Museum.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Byrd, Robert C.

The Senate

of the

Roman

Republic

:

addresses on the history of

Roman

constitutionalism / Robert C. Byrd.

cm.— (S.

p.

doc.

103-23)

;

"103d Congress, 2d Session,

S.

Con. Res.

68, U.S.

Senate"

—T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references. 1.

Rome.

States.

Senate.

Congress. Senate)

I. ;

Title.

II.

Series:

Senate document (United

103-23.

1994

JC85.S4B95

328.3T0937— dc20

94-38166

CIP

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents U.S.

Government

Washington,

DC

Printing Office

20402

To Erma,

My

Wife

Contents Foreword

ix

Chronology

xiii

1

We Have

2

The Roman

3

The Senate Supreme

29

4

Roman

41

5

The

6

Hannibal Devastates

7

Rome Triumphant,

8

Erosion of Senate Authority

9

War, Revolution, and Turmoil

a

Solemn Covenant State

System Develops

15

Unification of the Italian Peninsula

First

and Second Punic Wars Italy,

55

218-203 B.C

69

202-133 B.C

10

Death Throes of the

11

The Rise

12

The Senate:

13

A

14

1

Roman

83

93 105

Republic

119

of Julius Caesar, 60-44 B.C Little

More Than

a

Name, 46-23

Turbulent Stream Flowing through Dark Centuries of Intrigue and Violence

131 B.C.

...

145 161

Constitutional Equilibrium: Mainstay of the

Republic

175

vii]

Illustrations Byrd (Author's

U.S. Senator Robert C.

Oath

collection)

...

Frontispiece

of Office (U.S. Senate Records, National Archives)

...

Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu (Bibliotheque Nationale)

The Death

of

Histoire de

Remus and

la

the Founding of

Histoire de

la

la

Rome (From

to

28

Death (From

Republique Romaine, Paris, 1810)

Regulus Leaves Histoire de

14

Republique Romaine, Paris, 1810)

Manlius Torquatus Condemns His Son

Rome

to

xviii

40

Return to Carthage (From

Republique Romaine, Paris, 1810)

Hannibal (Museo Nazionale, Naples) Destruction of Carthage (From Histoire de

54 68

la

Republique

Romaine, Paris, 1810) Tiberius Gracchus Closes the Temple of Saturn; Gaius Gracchus, Tribune of the People (From Histoire de la

82

Republique Romaine, Paris, 1810) Lucius Cornelius Sulla (Staatliche Antikensammlung u Glyptothek, Munich); Gaius Marius (Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican) Catiline Confronted in the Senate by Cicero (From Histoire de la Republique Romaine, Paris, 1810) Cato the Younger (Volubius Museum, Morocco); Gaius Julius Caesar (Museo Nazionale, Naples); Marcus Tullius Cicero (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence); Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek,

92

Copenhagen) la

Republique

144

Romaine, Paris, 1810)

Death of Antony; Death of Cleopatra (From

Histoire de

la

160

Republique Romaine, Paris, 1810) of Congress

118

130

Assassination of Caesar (From Histoire de

Members

104

Commemorate

the Constitution's

Two-hundredth Anniversary, Independence

Hall,

Philadelphia, July 16, 1987 (U.S. Senate Historical

174

Office)

[

viii

Foreword Skyrocketing budget deficits during the 1980's produced legislative proposals to bring the federal budget under control. In 1982, the Senate passed a balanced budget constitutional amendment, but the House of Representatives failed to obtain the two-thirds vote necessary to send the proposal to the states. In 1985, resorting to statute rather than constitutional amendment, Congress passed the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act (Gramm-RudmanHollings) and renewed its provisions two years later, although this statute ultimately failed to achieve its objectives. In 1986, the Senate considered a second balanced budget amendment, but failed to pass it by a one- vote margin. In 1994, congressional supporters of a budget balancing amendment fell short by a small margin in both chambers. Proponents of structural budgetary constraints on Congress also renewed longstanding efforts to alter the Constitution by giving the president authority to veto individual items within appropriations bills.

numerous

On May

5,

1993, Senator Robert C. Byrd,

chairman of the

Senate Appropriations Committee, initiated a series of fourteen addresses in opposition to the proposed line-item-veto concept.

During

the following five

these speeches

entirely

and

—packed with

a-half months, he delivered each of

names, dates, and complex narratives

from memory and without recourse even

—

to notes or consulta-

with staff aides. The first two sentences of his opening address offered the flavor of what was to come. tion

Mr. President, twelve years of trickle-down, supply-side Reaganomics, Laffer curves, and a borrow-and-spend national credit card binge have left the country with a deteriorating infrastructure, a stagnant economy, high

unemployment, triple-digit billion-dollar deficits, a $4 trillion debt, and a $200 billion annual interest payment on that debt. In search of antidotes for this fast-spreading fiscal mela-

noma of suffocating deficits and debts, the budget medicine men have once again begun their annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Line-Item Veto, to worship at the altar of gold, quack remedies

—

such as enhanced rescission, and other graven images which, if adopted, would give rise to unwarranted expectations and possibly

fool's

line-item veto,

[ix]

—

raise serious constitutional questions involving separation of

powers, checks and balances, and control of the national purse.

Senator Byrd

devised

the

equivalent

of

a

fourteen-week

on the constitutional history of separated and shared powers as shaped in the republic and empire of ancient Rome. To prepare himself for this task, the senior West Virginia senator read extensively on the history of England and ancient Rome. He began with the writings of university seminar

Montesquieu, the eighteenth-century French philosopher who had also studied and thought deeply about the history of Rome and the operation of contemporary English governmental institutions. Montesquieu's political philosophy had profoundly influenced the thinking of those who framed the U.S. Constitution. To better understand what the framers had in mind when they created a governmental system of divided and shared powers, Senator Byrd carefully examined Montesquieu's 1734 essay, Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the

and

Romans

their Decline.

Senator Byrd reasoned that, "if the history of the Roman people helped to influence Montesquieu's political philosophy concerning checks and balances and the separation of powers, and if Montesquieu's political theory influenced our American forebears in their writing of the United States Constitution, then why can it not be said that the history of Rome and the Romans, as well as the history of England and Englishmen, influenced [the Constitution's framers]." To test this premise, he examined the works of more than twenty celebrated historians of ancient Rome who wrote from the time of Polybius, in the second century before Christ, down through Sallust, Julius Caesar, Livy, Plutarch, Tacitus, Suetonius, and others, concluding with Edward Gibbon in the eighteenth century.

Byrd described the development of ancient Rome from its legendary founding in 753 B.C., through its evolution to a republic with a strong and independent Senate and then into its decline and collapse as the Roman Senate willingly yielded hard-won powers to a succession of dictators and emperors. The Roman Senate had emerged as the mainstay of an extended struggle against executive authority for power to conIn his fourteen addresses, Senator

trol the purse.

For centuries, the Senate of ancient [x]

Rome was

made up

of "the wisest, the best educated, the

most experienced, most

Roman

stance in the

vigilant,

most

republic. " But

most respected,

patriotic

"when

the

men of subRoman Senate

gave up its control of the purse strings, it gave away its power to check the executive. From that point on, the Senate Once the mainstay was weakened, the structure declined. .

.

.

collapsed and the

Roman

republic

fell."

Senator Byrd sees ample parallels between the willingness of Roman senators to hand over powers of the purse to usurping executives and the compliant attitude of United States senators in responding to presidential urging for a similar grant of

powers

in a line-item veto constitutional

amendment. Taken

together, this fourteen-part series displays vast learning, pro-

digious

memory, and single-minded determination to preserve more than two millen-

constitutional prerogatives forged over

nia of

human

experience.

Richard A. Baker Director

U.S. Senate Historical Office

Acknowledgements For their accommodations and courtesies during the five months in 1993 when I delivered this series of one-hour speeches, I wish to thank the two leaders Senator George Mitchell and Senator Robert Dole and the floor staffs Abby Saffold, Lula Davis, Martin Paone, Howard Greene, and Elizabeth Greene. I also appreciate the assistance of Dr. Richard Baker who encouraged me throughout this project.

more than

—

—

—

Robert C. Byrd

\i

On the Senate of the Roman Republic Aad contfilete cowitml ovev theliwr^e. Qst «4^^?^^^/iw^^^/^2^i^^ ea&eutedfopelan houou, made and mMvea foeaHeti. Qst afifiwoved m weAhonswll-

Qxenale aave autaw houiew; the m^wibews [of theit abandoned thelw autu as senators, and, in dotna bo,

created in Tpaetew the most hotoerdid

man

in the ancient axyrdd

and one Ofthe most'houmftd men tn allliMorn. [haae 1 63

Odam af^aiduje w^vif oe ce^itentfilalina, awth trie line-item veto, trie

eaxvmfile of trie

ina tnefiowev

z/voman Q/enale; lesina ouv nemie and Sriift-

tJwewan tneiw elected\eh^e6ewitalives, to an aM-liotoewful eweeuttue Oxfoje do thai, then uie, the senators and refwesemfatlves oftoaan, wllloe rield a