The Constitution as a Bucket List: “A Republic If You Can Keep It”

BY DAVID GRAY ADLER

While reflecting on the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln observed that America was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal. As usual, Lincoln was right. Our founders fought a revolution to free themselves from England and the Old-World values that exalted monarchy and authority and obedience, preferring the New World doctrine of natural rights, freedom of conscience and dissent, and its fundamental principle of government based on the consent of the people. The American experiment in self-governance was embodied in the Constitution, as signaled by insertion of the majestic phrase in the Preamble—“We the People”—which calls forth the still radically democratic idea that the government of the United States exists to serve the people, not the regressive concept that the people serve the government.

The Constitution created by the citizenry in 1787 is a blueprint for the exercise of governmental power. As such, it is a bucket list, an aspiration, as the Framers of the Constitution understood it. Confinement of governing authority swam against the tides of history. Illimited power, not limited power, was the natural course. James Madison, Father of the Constitution, explained in Federalist No. 51 the great difficulties confronting the constitutional challenges facing the new republic.

The science of politics taught that those who held power were tempted to abuse it. For remedies, the Framers turned to the doctrines of enumeration of powers, separation of powers, and checks and balances. The enumeration of powers scheme, underappreciated as a key feature of American Constitutionalism, provided citizens with a road map to the exercise of specific powers. In principle, precise grants of power informed everyone about the location of authority, empowering knowledgeable citizens to identify acts of usurpation. The separation of powers aimed to preserve the rough division of governmental power—legislative, executive, and judicial—to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a single person or department, which the founders regarded as the definition of tyranny. Checks and balances instilled officials with the necessary personal means and political ambitions to maintain constitutional equilibrium.

But maintenance of the Constitution could not rely solely on the “good” intentions of those who wielded power. American citizens had the duty, as well as the right, to check governmental errors, including aggrandizement and usurpation of power. Citizenship entailed responsibilities, and the citizenry was equipped to perform its duties. The First Amendment guaranteed freedom of speech, a tool for citizens to critique and criticize governmental policies and actions. Freedom of the press protected the Fourth Estate in its effort to shine a light on government and reveal failures, expose deceit and corruption and, generally, to hold government officials accountable.

At all events, a blueprint for constitutional government is not a self-executing machine, but a bucket list of wishes and “to dos.” It requires good men and women at the helm, which means that voters have responsibility to become informed and discerning voters, serious about the business of electing representatives who embody the virtues expected of leaders in a democracy. Voters must choose those who value limited government, respect institutions and the rule of law, forswear violence as a means of governance, promise to adhere to constitutional limitations and accept electoral outcomes. Citizens, moreover, must appreciate the virtues and values of compromise, and must insist that their representatives share that commitment.

The Constitution, consisting of 87 sentences, is not a lengthy bucket list, but the implementation of its provisions is critical to the future of our nation as we know it. The duty of citizens and officials alike was stated clearly and simply on September 17, 1787, when Benjamin Franklin, on the streets of Philadelphia, following the adjournment of the Constitutional Convention, was asked about the nature of the government that had just been created, whether it was a monarchy or a republic? Dr. Franklin replied, “A Republic, madam, if you can keep it.” This historic charge is America’s greatest bucket list goal.