As Constitution Day falls on September 17, we are in the midst of an historically divisive election season. The gaps between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservative have never seemed wider – and many Americans even feel alienated from the choices they face in the voting booth. But this Constitution Day, we have an opportunity to rediscover the genius and promise of our founding document that could be the key to our future as a diverse, complicated, and self-governing republic.
Yuval Levin has masterfully articulated these principles in his latest book, American Covenant. Rather than dismissing the document as an outdated relic of a bygone age, or as an impediment to reshaping society according to partisan preferences, he celebrates it as the very thing that makes us Americans. Levin’s account of its fundamental purposes should be essential reading for America’s political leaders, media commentators, scholars, and civics teachers—and any citizen who seeks to better understand the role of the U.S. Constitution in the 21st century.
Levin begins with hope. Dismissing both facile optimism and overwhelming pessimism, he believes that the promise of the American Founding and its vision for human freedom is also a challenge to strive for high virtue and true national greatness. Anyone surveying American institutions must be honest about the state of decay they are in; but Levin looks beyond the horizon of decline in search of a method for renewal.
In his narrative, the Constitution itself emerges as the greatest tool for restoring what is being lost in the partisan conflict raging around us. The Founders understood the problems posed to a republic by faction, but as Publius argued in Federalist 10, “Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment, without which it instantly expires.” Levin therefore does not see the variety and diversity of American life as a problem so much as one of the chief goods the Constitution aims at preserving.
Nonetheless, another fundamental purpose of the Constitution is to provide the means for working together as a country to address issues of public life in a unified way. Levin makes an important distinction between unity as mere “agreement” and unity as “acting together.” The Founders never wanted every American to think exactly alike or to reduce America to the despotism of a hive-minded ideology. The Constitution provides mechanisms – ranging from federalism to the separation of powers to limits on federal authority – which mediate between these goods and actually work to produce a shared consensus.
Throughout American Covenant, Levin expertly analyzes these constitutional mechanisms and why they seem ineffective today. Far from blaming the Founders, as is all too common among academic critics on the left and the right, Levin unpacks the inherent wisdom embedded in their republican designs. In many ways, governing institutions such as Congress, the presidency, or the courts are breaking down because we have strayed so far from the Founders’ original vision. For example, Congress has lost much of its functionality as a deliberative body, embracing performative politics over the hard work of debate in committees. Levin carefully details the imbalances of today’s national government while carefully painting a picture of the constitutional ideal that could yet be in our grasp if we but first comprehend it.
The good news is that a movement for civic renewal is underway. As Levin recently highlighted in an encouraging article for Commentary magazine, state legislatures are establishing new schools of civic thought at public colleges and universities to provide a haven for the traditional liberal arts and a means to inject new resources into their study. At the K-12 level, states and local school districts are developing a host of innovative techniques to put the emphasis back on civics. There is still so much work to be done, but leaders – practitioners and parents alike – are rising up to do it.
American Covenant should be seen as a key resource for this growing movement. Levin has beautifully described what makes our form of government so exceptional, and provided a realistic assessment of the challenges facing it. He eschews the tiresome partisanship all too common in public discourse today, and people on both sides of the aisle can learn much from his wisdom.
Ultimately, the Constitution only works if citizens are willing to do the business of self-government. Levin’s book will be an encouragement to many laboring to restore our institutions. There is no better way to celebrate Constitution Day than by picking it up, reading it, and finding new ways to join in the extraordinary “American Covenant” it describes.
Hans Zeiger is president of the Jack Miller Center (www.jackmillercenter.org), an educational venture focused on building talent pipelines for academic scholars of the American political tradition.
