Most conservatives are likely familiar with John Adams’ insightful observation, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
For years, we have accepted the obvious implication of that statement: If the system isn’t working as intended, the problem is with the people. It’s the “if you can keep it” part of Ben Franklin’s description of the republic the Founders gave us.
Until recently, even those frustrated by our national decline generally accepted that understanding.
They diagnosed the disease—cultural rot, moral confusion, the collapse of institutional trust—and argued, rightly, that renewal must begin there.
But something has shifted. Increasingly, some post-liberal voices on the right suggest the solution is not to reform the people, but to revise–or replace–our system of government itself.
The American experiment has not failed. It was hijacked by the progressive movement more than a century ago.
Over the past 100 years, the federal government has usurped roles never intended for it: family formation, moral instruction, income distribution, education, overregulation, even meaning itself, aided and abetted by the media/entertainment/advertising-industrial complex.
As the state grew more behemoth, church and community institutions were hollowed out; which was the cause and which the effect may be arguable, but the correlation is indisputable.
The “little platoons” that once formed Americans into responsible citizens have been crowded out by self-perpetuating bureaucracies fueled by massive, unsustainable debt.
The challenge of our time is to return the government to its constitutional limits, enabling families, churches and community organizations to once again fulfill their historical responsibilities.
We can take encouragement from the Trump administration’s reductions in regulatory overreach, shrinking of the federal workforce and dismantling of the Department of Education—among other smaller-government outcomes—along with the Supreme Court’s rediscovery of judicial humility.
But there is a danger in the populist moment in which we find ourselves. It has brought necessary corrective energy but, unmoored to enduring principles, could lead us down a slippery slope towards a post-liberal version of the utopia the Left has been pursuing for a century.
Conservatives have always recognized that utopia (from the Greek, meaning “no place”) does not—and cannot, exist—and its pursuit always leads to tyranny.
Now is not the time to fool ourselves into thinking our version of it might work.
The answer is neither the totalitarianism towards which we have been slowly but inexorably heading nor a benevolent authoritarianism for which some now advocate, but a strong civil society and a limited, non-interventive state.
That was, and remains, the genius of the American system of government.
Yes, the law is a teacher, and the more our laws reflect the Judeo-Christian ethic that formed the basis of Western Civilization, the better.
But as a Christian, my religion doesn’t allow me to force anyone into my religion.
Freedom of conscience is essential. The consent of the governed is foundational. Separation of powers is necessary. Checks and balances are prudent. The Bill of Rights is indispensable.
We don’t need a new form of government; we need a moral and cultural renewal worthy of the one our forefathers gave us.
Fortunately, there is much we can do in arenas conservatives have, until recently, virtually abandoned—journalism, education, the arts, entertainment and advertising—and in which we are seeing a nascent creative resurgence gaining momentum.
The more we move back into pre-political and non-political spaces, the more we will affect the hearts and minds—and ultimately the votes—of the people.
Every step we manage to make along the path of religious and cultural revival will move us in the right direction. Dismissing constitutional limits in pursuit of even well-intended outcomes will only increase our peril.
Right-minded leaders who wield the power of the federal government must also steadily weaken it, for we can be certain it will again fall into the wrong hands.
Renewal, not reinvention, is the answer.
As we return to our roots, as we recommit to constitutional limits, as we reinvigorate federalism and the pre-New Deal subsidiarity Alexis de Tocqueville found so remarkable, we will restore the blessings of liberty and regenerate little platoons in every corner of America.
That work is slower, less exhilarating and more difficult than knocking down Constitutional pillars and hoping America will remain standing. But it’s the only way to ensure this nation of the people, by the people, and for the people will remain subject to the people.
