A small republic or a large (con)federal
republic: these seem to be the only alternatives that the republican tradition allows.
The concern for size and civic virtue that
these alternatives reflect testifies to the
republican belief that citizens must have a
strong attachment to their polity that grows
out of a connection to their fellow citizens.
This connection must work almost immediately, as in the city-republic, or in buildingblock fashion, with the higher and more
remote layers of government resting on the
local ones, as in the federal republic. Without
some connection of this sort, civic virtue will
not flourish and self-government will not
survive. Neither will the form of citizenship
that some have regarded as its only true form.