Two-hundred-and-fifty years after America’s Founding Declaration, the citizenry has grown discomfited and demoralized. Polls show support for democracy itself is down, especially among the young. So the semiquincentennial is a good time to take account of the ideals that represent the genius of America, and to ask whether they can be reengaged to improve our governance today.
That genius and those ideals include singular devotion to the rule of law, checks and balances, and James Madison’s insight in Federalist No. 47 that concentration of all power in the same hands is “the very definition of tyranny” — even when, as Jefferson observed, the concentrator may be himself elected. Also included among our Founding ideals was dedication to the precepts of republican virtue: self-restraint, self-improvement, humility, and respect for the moral and civic duty to serve the public interest over individual private interests.
Comments