The Republic at 250: A Crisis of Civic Memory, by Michael Smith

As America approaches its 250th birthday, one begins to wonder whether we are witnessing the natural fatigue of a late-stage republic or merely the rebellious turbulence of a nation chafing against the rules of its founders. Modern societies tend to imagine liberty as a permanent inheritance — self-renewing, self-evident, self-defending, and maintenance-free. Yet the historical record suggests something far more fragile: national-scale freedom rarely lasts more than a few centuries before dissolving through internal exhaustion or being replaced by a new ideological faith. Republics decay not only through foreign assault, but through the gradual abandonment of the civic habits that once sustained them. The true historical surprise is not how many nations have lost their freedom, but how remarkably long the United States has managed to preserve its own.

American exceptionalism has always been misunderstood. The country was never perfect, but it was — through most of its history — relatively free, prosperous, and stable. Most Americans recognized this intuitive truth; thus, the nation remained largely impervious to utopian calls for “revolution.” The lived experience of raising families, building communities, and passing knowledge and wealth to the next generation created a natural immunity to radical politics. For revolutions to take root, a population must be divided by class and convinced that the existing system is intolerable. In an America still governed by reason and truth, that case was difficult to make. ….

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