In the years preceding the Great Famine the people of Ireland were separated in space and spirit by the divisive workings of history and geography and by the survival of ancient local customs that were feudal and in some instances, tribal in origin. In 1825, according to a contemporary observer, there were “different districts in Ireland almost as unlike each other as any two countries in Europe.” A thousand light years and more separated the Georgian splendor of Dublin from the rude Gaelic society of the West. And in all the provinces there were pockets where distinctive local cultures stubbornly endured; like the baronies of Bargy and Forth, in the extreme southeast corner of Wexford, whose inhabitants clung to a Chaucerian dialect until the middle of the century, or the fishing village of Claddagh, outside the city of Galway, where the people maintained a severe aloofness, marrying among themselves and ignoring outsiders.

Almost every period of crisis and decision in American history has produced writers on political affairs who have championed a “realistic” approach to the study of human and social problems. Convinced that successful political action must proceed from man “as he is,” such writers have been persistently and profoundly suspicious of theories which, they believe, are based either upon faulty assessments of the actual nature of the individual or upon visionary estimates of his potentialities. It is the opinion of these analysts that the nature of man is irrevocably fixed in its partially depraved and partially irrational career—a constant, as it were, among the myriad imponderables entering into the social equation. Thus it has long been a significant part of their method to attempt to discover in the experience of the past a coherent theory of limits applicable to contemporary political society. Eager to profit from the experience of other generations with the perennial problems of government and politics, they have generally displayed little tolerance toward those who would flaunt rationally grounded political experiment in the face of the practical lessons of history. Such combination of pessimistic analysis and resort to the experience of the past—Political Realism —has played a crucial role in the history of political thought in America.

A Few words may be in order at the outset to explain why I have chosen the title “Power and Morals and the Founding Fathers.” I believe that we can learn much from an inquiry into the basic thought and character of the first statesmen of the Republic that may help us in meeting the crisis of a divided world today. And such an inquiry can be most effectively pursued by a consideration of their views on power and morals.

In the Iliad the constitutional order of the Achaean army still functions. Nevertheless, the strain under which it works, as well as the critical situation in which the fateful decision for battle is taken, are symptoms of a general malaise; and they forebode disaster. A clearer view of this state of disease and doom, however, is today hampered by a haze of misconceptions. We have not yet overcome the eighteenth century conceits of the early, “naive” poetry of Homer, of the voice of nature and the “dewey freshness” that characterizes the youth of a people; and the fact that Homer became the educator of Hellas still inspires the idea that in his work we see Hellenic culture dawning. Hence, at the risk of becoming repetitious, it must be pointed out that Hellenic culture was a Greek recovery after a darkness of catastrophic intensity, that Homer was a pre-Hellenic poet and thinker, that in his work we savor the last ripeness of a dying civilization, and that he could become the educator of Hellas because under the raw and primitive conditions of its growth this Hellas was in dire need of guidance by an old, experienced and subtle educator. The well-diagnosed freshness of Homer is the freshness of the great observer, thinker and imaginative artist; it is not the freshness of the culture which he describes. In this respect one might compare Homer with Plato. It would be a grievous error to draw from the greatness of Plato conclusions with regard to the health of Athenian political culture. The work of Homer, like Plato's, rather distilled the quintessence of a fading grandeur and thus preserved it for transmission to posterity.