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A Republic Cannot Survive on Its Constitution Alone

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Part 2 of Democracy Is Beautiful. Politics Is Ugly. What holds a divided society together when citizens lose faith in their future, their institutions and one another?

The United States has operated under the same Constitution since 1789. It has endured wars, depressions, assassinations, political scandals and profound disagreements over the meaning of freedom and equality. It also suffered a catastrophic Civil War that demonstrated how completely a nation can fracture.

What allows people with fundamentally different beliefs and interests to remain committed to the same country?

A constitution establishes the rules of government. It cannot guarantee that citizens trust those rules, believe they have a future within the system or feel any obligation toward people with whom they disagree.

For more than two thousand years, political philosophers have examined the conditions that sustain a republic. Their insights reveal five foundations that extend beyond constitutional design.

A Stake in the Future

Aristotle (384–322 BCE) warned in Politics that deep divisions between rich and poor could destabilize government. He believed a substantial middle class moderated competing economic interests and helped preserve political stability.

America has long been sustained by the expectation that hard work could produce a better life. Homeownership, entrepreneurship, education and the opportunity to provide more for one’s children gave people a personal stake in the country’s success.

But that confidence weakens when housing becomes unaffordable, healthcare and education consume family incomes, and younger generations question whether they can achieve the standard of living their parents enjoyed.

The problem extends beyond inequality. People can tolerate considerable differences in wealth when they believe advancement remains possible. Resentment grows when opportunity appears closed and economic rewards seem disconnected from effort.

A republic becomes vulnerable when citizens stop believing they have a future worth investing in.

Confidence in Fair Institutions

John Locke (1632–1704) argued that legitimate government exists to protect fundamental rights through established laws and impartial administration of justice.

Citizens can accept decisions they dislike when they believe the rules are fair. But when courts, elections, law enforcement and government agencies are viewed as instruments of political or economic favoritism, dissatisfaction becomes a challenge to the system itself.

Trust in Washington has fallen dramatically. Pew Research Center’s historical series shows that 73% of Americans trusted the federal government to do what is right most or all of the time in 1958, compared with just 17% in September 2025.

The more troubling development is the tendency to judge institutions by whether they produce politically desirable outcomes.

A court is considered legitimate when it rules favorably and corrupt when it does not. Elections are celebrated when preferred candidates win and questioned when they lose.

The danger arises when citizens lose confidence that the rules apply equally to everyone.

The Bonds That Make a Nation

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), writing in Democracy in America, admired Americans’ extraordinary willingness to form churches, charities, schools, local organizations and voluntary associations.

These institutions taught cooperation. Neighbors could disagree about national politics while working together to improve their communities.

Tocqueville feared that isolated individuals would increasingly depend upon centralized government as local associations weakened.

Today, political identity increasingly reaches into friendships, families, schools, religious institutions and businesses. Social media encourages people to surround themselves with those who share their opinions while regarding political opponents with suspicion.

The danger is that citizens begin to lose relationships that transcend politics.

A nation needs more than a common government. It needs communities in which people learn to live and work together despite their differences.

A Shared Understanding of Reality

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), in her 1967 essay Truth and Politics, examined the importance of factual truth to public life.

People can disagree about policies, values and the interpretation of events. But meaningful debate requires some common understanding of what actually happened.

Today’s information environment offers unprecedented access to knowledge while allowing competing political communities to inhabit entirely different accounts of reality.

Traditional media, partisan commentators, social platforms and artificial intelligence can reinforce existing beliefs and spread misleading claims.

When citizens cannot agree on basic facts or recognize credible evidence, persuasion becomes difficult. Every disagreement can become another accusation of deception.

“In a world where facts are extraneous, we are only left with a clash of emotions.” – First One Through, “Eyes Wide Shut” November 2016

A republic requires more than freedom to express competing opinions. It needs a public capable of distinguishing facts from arguments about those facts.

The Character Required for Self-Government

John Adams (1735–1826) understood that republican institutions depended upon civic virtue as well as laws.

In Thoughts on Government (1776), he emphasized representative institutions, impartial justice and the responsibilities of citizenship.

No constitution can anticipate every circumstance in which citizens or political leaders must choose between immediate advantage and the integrity of the system. People must sometimes accept electoral defeat, respect unfavorable court decisions and defend principles that benefit their opponents. When political disagreement becomes moral hostility, such restraint becomes harder. Political victory may begin to appear more important than the rules governing competition.

The republic depends upon citizens willing to preserve institutions even when those institutions prevent them from getting what they want.

When the Foundations Begin to Fail

These five foundations reinforce one another.

  • Economic opportunity gives citizens a stake in the future.
  • Fair institutions give them confidence in the rules.
  • Community creates belonging. S
  • hared facts make disagreement manageable.
  • Civic virtue sustains the willingness to preserve the system.

Their erosion can create a dangerous cycle.

People who believe they cannot get ahead may blame institutions they consider unfair. Social isolation makes it easier to view other groups as responsible. Competing information environments reinforce hostility. Political leaders and citizens become more willing to sacrifice restraint in pursuit of victory.

America has endured such pressures before. The Great Depression tested confidence in economic opportunity. The civil rights movement challenged a system that denied equal rights to millions. The Civil War demonstrated the catastrophic consequences when competing visions of the nation could no longer be reconciled peacefully.

These crises also reveal that constitutional endurance depends upon reform, institutional legitimacy and the ability to rebuild a shared national purpose.

The Constitution remains in place today. The more important question is whether the conditions that sustain it are growing weaker.

What Makes the Republic Worth Preserving?

A nation cannot remain united merely because its citizens are governed by the same laws.

They must believe that opportunity remains possible, that institutions operate fairly and that their neighbors’ success does not require their own failure.

The deepest danger arises when citizens conclude that their future depends upon defeating, excluding, depriving or stealing from other Americans rather than building a society in which they can all prosper.

Jefferson Memorial, Washington DC

The ultimate test of a republic is whether its citizens still recognize one another as legitimate participants in a shared national future. When political opponents become enemies who must be defeated at any cost, elections cease to be a means of resolving disagreement and become battles over who has the right to govern.

A constitution can establish the rules of that contest. Only the citizens can decide whether those rules—and the republic itself—remain worth preserving.

The Covenant and the Constitution

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As America approaches its 250th birthday and Jews prepare to celebrate Shavuot, two anniversaries separated by more than three thousand years arrive together.

One commemorates the acceptance of a covenant at Sinai. The other celebrates the creation of a constitutional republic in Philadelphia.

Different eras, different peoples, different purposes. Yet both rank among history’s most successful experiments in ordered liberty. Each rests upon the belief that freedom flourishes when people willingly bind themselves to enduring principles.

Shavuot marks the giving of the Torah. According to Jewish tradition, an entire nation accepted a shared framework of law, responsibility, and purpose. The defining moment of Jewish history centered on a covenant that applied equally to shepherds, merchants, judges, priests, and kings. Every Jew inherited both privileges and obligations. Every Jew stood beneath the same law.

America’s Founders pursued a similar aspiration. They sought to create a republic governed by laws rather than personalities, sustained by citizens willing to shoulder responsibility for the common good. The Constitution would provide the framework. The character of the people would determine whether it endured.

For American Jews, those two traditions have complemented one another for nearly two and a half centuries.

A Nation Built on Obligations

The Torah places responsibility at the center of communal life.

Parents teach children. Judges pursue justice. Business owners conduct themselves honestly. Communities support widows, orphans, and the poor. Neighbors help one another. Citizens participate in communal affairs. The Hebrew word mitzvah means commandment, reflecting a worldview in which obligation occupies a central place.

Jewish life developed around institutions that required participation and commitment. Synagogues, schools, charitable organizations, burial societies, study groups, courts, and community councils depended upon ordinary people investing time, resources, and energy into a shared enterprise.

Across centuries and continents, Jewish communities learned how to govern themselves, educate their children, care for vulnerable members, settle disputes, raise funds, preserve traditions, and maintain communal cohesion across generations. Those habits became deeply ingrained. They traveled wherever Jews traveled.

A constitutional republic depends upon many of the same qualities. Elections require voters. Courts require jurors. Communities require volunteers. Public institutions require trust. Civil society depends upon citizens who contribute more than they consume.

The connection between liberty and responsibility appears throughout Jewish tradition. The Exodus brought physical freedom. Seven weeks later, the Israelites arrived at Sinai and accepted the responsibilities that would transform a collection of former slaves into a nation. Freedom acquired meaning through purpose, discipline, and commitment.

That lesson remains profoundly relevant in every generation.

Why America Worked

For nearly two thousand years, Jewish communities navigated a recurring dilemma. Security often required accommodation. Opportunity frequently depended upon the goodwill of rulers. Rights expanded and contracted according to the decisions of monarchs, church authorities, political parties, and shifting public sentiment.

The American republic introduced a different model.

Rights flowed from citizenship.

The promise appeared almost immediately.

In 1790, George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, home of Touro Synagogue, offering a vision unlike anything Jews had encountered in centuries of Diaspora life. The government of the United States, Washington wrote, gave “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” More importantly, he described Jews as possessing “alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.”

Those words represented far more than tolerance. Tolerance implies permission granted by those in power. Washington described Jews as citizens whose rights derived from the principles of the republic itself.

The distinction proved historic.

America offered Jews something extraordinary: equal citizenship while allowing them to remain fully Jewish.

By the early twentieth century, American Jews had produced judges, industrialists, labor leaders, scholars, entrepreneurs, military officers, and public servants. No figure better embodied the synthesis of Jewish identity and American citizenship than Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

At a time when some questioned whether Jews could maintain a distinct identity while remaining devoted Americans, Brandeis dismissed the concern entirely.

“To be good Americans, we must be better Jews.” – Louis Brandeis

Brandeis understood that Judaism and American citizenship drew strength from many of the same sources. Both relied upon educated citizens. Both depended upon moral self-restraint. Both valued participation over passivity. Both asked individuals to contribute to a larger community.

He also celebrated America’s ability to unite diverse communities while preserving their distinct identities.

“America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress.” – Louis Brandeis

That insight echoes one of the Torah’s earliest political arrangements. The tribes of Israel maintained distinct identities, histories, and responsibilities while participating in a common covenant. Judah remained Judah. Levi remained Levi. Ephraim remained Ephraim. Diversity existed within a framework of shared purpose.

America has often operated in much the same way. Citizens arrive from every corner of the globe carrying different languages, traditions, and family histories. They become Americans through allegiance to constitutional principles and civic participation. Unity emerges through commitment to a common enterprise.

America’s Founders understood the importance of civic character as well. John Adams famously observed that the Constitution was made “only for a moral and religious People.”

The statement reflected a practical reality. Institutions matter. Laws matter. Their effectiveness ultimately depends upon citizens capable of exercising self-restraint, accepting responsibility, and participating in public life.

Those qualities occupy a central place in Jewish tradition.

The Miracle of Compatibility

The story of American Jewry reflects something deeper than economic opportunity or social mobility.

America and Judaism developed complementary understandings of freedom.

Both traditions place law above rulers. Both value education. Both encourage active participation in communal affairs. Both rely upon citizens capable of governing themselves. Both recognize that liberty carries responsibilities.

The partnership has been extraordinarily successful.

American Jews have served in every war, sat on the Supreme Court, led major corporations, founded universities, advanced scientific discovery, built charitable institutions, served in elected office, and contributed to nearly every aspect of national life. At the same time, Jewish communities have built thousands of synagogues, schools, charities, cultural institutions, and communal organizations across the country.

The result has been one of the most successful relationships between a religious minority and a democratic republic in modern history.

As Shavuot approaches and America prepares to celebrate a quarter millennium of independence, the convergence feels especially meaningful.

At Sinai, freedom became joined to responsibility. In Philadelphia, liberty became joined to constitutional government.

Both moments reflected the same enduring insight: freedom survives when citizens willingly accept obligations to something larger than themselves.

Three millennia later, Jews celebrating Shavuot and Americans celebrating 250 years of independence continue to draw from that same well. A covenant and a Constitution, each in its own way, call upon free people to govern themselves, serve a higher purpose, and build a society worthy of being passed to the next generation.