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Abstract
Sir Thomas More was a politician, statesman, visionary humanist, and a friend of Erasmus, Colet, and Henry VIII. His most famous literary work is Utopia, a word coined based on the Greek for ‘no place’. Its influence has been enormous, inspiring social thinkers as diverse as Rousseau and B. F. Skinner. Using the principles More seemed to advocate, this article addresses the question: ‘What would he have thought of the Constitution of the United States had he lived to read it and experience life under its aegis?’ Much of what the Americans have done he would appreciate, much he would deplore. He would appreciate the federal nature of government, the elective nature of the legislature, and the freedom granted to citizens. He would have deplored slavery based on race and applauded the 13th Amendment. He would have looked askance at the role of the president and the necessity for a military. In sum, if we can believe that what he wrote in Utopia reflects his attitudes correctly, Thomas More’s would be a mixed verdict on American republicanism.
Notes
[1] A (probably apocryphal) story describes how the two met in 1499 at a dinner hosted by Henry Colet, the Lord Mayor of London. Before each knew who the other was they engaged in lively, spirited conversation, in the middle of which Erasmus said to his dinner companion, ‘You must be More or no‐one,’ to which More replied, ‘You must be Erasmus or the Devil’ (Chambers, Citation1968, p. 70). In his letter to Ulrich von Hutton, Erasmus describes More as ‘the most delightful character in the world’ (More, 1516/Citation1975, p. 127).
[2] I have used the translation by Robert M. Adams published by W. W. Norton & Company (1975). Adams spices his notes with interesting tidbits and etymologies.
[3] The book’s narrator’s surname, Hythloday, combines the Greek words for ‘nonsense’ (huthlos) with ‘to distribute’ (daien), thus making him a ‘nonsense‐peddler’; ‘Polylerites’ comes from the Greek for ‘much nonsense’ (polus and leiros); the Macarians, who live near Utopia, derive their name from the Greek for ‘happy’ or ‘fortunate’ (makarios).
[4] See Vespucci’s description of his first and fourth voyages (More, 1516/Citation1975, pp. 233–238).
[5] Erasmus to Ulrich von Hutten (More, 1516/Citation1975, p. 134). As Erasmus acted as More’s agent in publishing the work, he should know.
[6] Until the mid‐1980s, this so‐called ‘Takings clause’ was taken to mean that government could not take property without compensating owners. But since the Reagan years the courts have been extending this to mean that government must compensate property owners who are prevented from exploiting their property due to environmental constraints. Recently (summer, 2001) in Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, the court ruled that even when the entire value of property is not eliminated, the property owner has the right to sue the state that prevents him from damaging the environment through his development of property. Thomas More would have been appalled.
[7] Whether More, the staunch Roman Catholic, ever reflected on the irony of his advocating divorce as an option to unhappy marriage, and the subsequent divorce issue which resulted in the dissolution of the ties that bound England to the Roman Church, I do not know.