Why It Endures
The American Constitution, adopted in 1787, has been the foundation of the United States’ stability and success for over 250 years. Its longevity is a testament to the brilliance of its design, the quality of the people who drafted it, and the history and culture at the time with the backdrop of the Enlightenment. Other attempts at governance failed at the time. The abject failure of the French Revolution and its chaos and destruction stands in stark contrast. Furthermore, Mexico adopted the U.S. Constitution nearly word for word, yet failed. What made the American Constitution unique? The answer lies in the process, the philosophy, the people, and the culture that shaped it.
More than a Revolution but an Evolution
The colonists came to America primarily for religious and economic freedom. For 150 years, the American colonists had their local governments and were well-versed in liberty, freedom, and self-governance, but the Crown mostly neglected them. The American Revolution was not a radical break from the past but an evolution of existing principles of self-governance. The colonies had long histories of local government through assemblies and town meetings, creating a foundation for participatory governance.
When King George III and the British Parliament began exerting greater control over the colonies, attempting to centralize authority and revoke local autonomy, the colonists resisted. The colonists saw themselves as British citizens with rights of representation, especially after losing blood and treasure as they fought alongside the British soldiers in the French and Indian War (the Seven Years War across the pond). Their fight for independence was not an attempt to dismantle governance but to reclaim a system that had already functioned effectively. This incremental approach provided stability during the transition from British rule to independence and shaped the framework of the Constitution.
The People Behind the Constitution
The politicians who drafted the Constitution were statesmen placing the common good over individual good. These extraordinary individuals were influenced by Enlightenment philosophy and a shared commitment to creating a lasting government. Leaders like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, George Washington, George Mason, and Benjamin Franklin approached their tasks with virtue, duty, and responsibility that transcended personal ambition or gain. They had put their lives and property behind the revolution and were doing the same to preserve liberty and freedom for all without kings and tyrants.
The debates at the Constitutional Convention were rigorous, reflecting the delegates’ intellectual depth and moral seriousness. Compromises, such as the Great Compromise between large and small states, were reached not through ideology but through pragmatic negotiation. These men understood the gravity of their work and the need to balance competing interests to ensure unity.
The Role of Virtue and Belief in God
The Founding Fathers recognized the necessity of virtue in leaders and citizens for the success of a republic. John Adams famously declared, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Many framers believed that a foundation of morality, often faith-based, was essential for preserving liberty.
Their belief in God influenced their commitment to justice and recognition of human fallibility. This acknowledgment of human imperfection led them to design a system of checks and balances, ensuring that no single branch of government could dominate.
James Madison said it well: “If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
The Process of Drafting and Ratification
The process of drafting and ratifying the Constitution was deliberate and inclusive. The Federalist Papers, written by Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay, defended the proposed Constitution, engaging the public in the debate. The Anti-Federalist Papers, authored by Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee and others, opposed ratification. State ratifying conventions had lively debates, ensuring the Constitution had legitimacy and public support. Some states only agreed to the passage of the addition of a Bill of Rights, which was one of the first tasks of the New Democratic Republic.
This rigorous process starkly contrasts the French Revolution, where radical changes resulted in chaos, instability, and the “Reign of Terror.” Similarly, Mexico’s verbatim adoption of the U.S. Constitution failed because it lacked the cultural and historical groundwork that made the American model successful.
The Philosophy Behind the Constitution
The Constitution was grounded in Enlightenment ideas of natural rights, the consent of the governed, the separation of powers, and the rule of law. Drawing from thinkers like John Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau and the historian Polybius’ commentaries on the Roman Republic, the framers created a government designed to protect individual freedoms while maintaining order.
Unlike the French Revolution, which sought to remake society entirely, the American Constitution respected tradition while implementing necessary reforms. Our Founding Fathers “cherry-picked” history’s best ideas and examples, striking a balance between innovation and preservation. In the “must-read” Federalist 51, James Madison stresses that the Constitution, as written, will prevent tyranny from either the minority or the majority.
Self-Governance: A History of Preparation
The colonies’ experience with governing themselves was another crucial element. For over a century, they were mostly left alone by the British Crown and Parliament. They managed local affairs through assemblies and town meetings, fostering a culture of political participation and accountability.
This history prepared the American people to take on the responsibilities of self-rule after independence. In contrast, nations like France and Mexico lacked this tradition, making their transitions to democratic governance more complicated and prone to failure.
Why Other Revolutions Failed
The French Revolution offers a stark contrast to the American experience. France’s attempt to draft a constitution in 1791 failed because it sought to completely dismantle existing institutions, including the monarchy and the church. They had no experience in self-rule, and the result was chaos, culminating in the Reign of Terror and the rise of Napoleon’s dictatorship.
Similarly, Mexico’s adoption of the U.S. Constitution failed because it was imposed without the cultural and historical underpinnings that made it work in America. The lack of a tradition of self-governance, combined with deep societal divisions, prevented the Constitution from taking root. Mere words, slogans, and idealistic rhetoric do not ensure a democratic republic or the resumption of tyranny. Napoleon Bonaparte eventually came to power following the chaos of death and destruction.
The Enduring Qualities of the American Constitution
Several unique qualities have allowed the American Constitution to endure:
- Checks and Balances: The separation of powers prevents any single branch of government from becoming too powerful, reflecting a realistic view of human nature.
- Adaptability: The amendment process allows the Constitution to evolve without losing its core principles, ensuring its relevance over time.
- Federalism: The division of power between state and federal governments provides flexibility and respects local autonomy.
- Public Participation: The Constitution was created with input from the people, ensuring its legitimacy and acceptance.
A Lesson for the World
The success of the American Constitution offers a lesson: democracy cannot be imposed from the outside. It must grow naturally from a nation’s culture, history, and people. Forcing democratic systems on nations without a foundation of self-governance or shared virtue often leads to failure.
As Tocqueville observed, America’s greatness lies in its people’s goodness. The Constitution will continue to endure as long as virtue and responsibility remain central to American life. But without these qualities, no system—no matter how brilliant—can succeed.
And we find in John Stuart Mills’s essay “On Liberty,” published in 1859, some words of warning and prescience –
And Ending Thought – Our Legislature is not the only source of a tyrannical majority
“[The] “tyranny of the majority” is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general terms, the practical question, where to place the limit—how to make the fitting adjustment between individual independence and social control—is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done. All that makes existence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed, by law in the first place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law. What these rules should be, is the principal question in human affairs; but if we except a few of the most obvious cases, it is one of those which least progress has been made in resolving.“
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