A recent social media recently read, “The Constitution was designed to limit government…Well, it doesn’t. So, now what?”
But is this true? Has the Constitution shown itself powerless to restrain the State?
The issue is not whether the Constitution is able to limit government, for the paper is only as good as the people it represents. The problem is that a postmodern, neo-Marxist heterodoxy has infiltrated our Republic and systematically deconstructed its cherished virtues. Too many people have come to believe that there is no truth—including the “self-evident” truths upon which our country was founded—and that there are no “binary” realities in life—good and evil, fact and opinion, male and female…virtue and depravity.
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.
The Founders understood that, as Benjamin Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
To depart from the Constitution would be to abandon any hope of upholding Natural Rights and restoring our Republic, as the Constitution is the “social contract” between the People and our delegated government. The U.S. Constitution distills the collected wisdom of millennia, drawing on the best thoughts, traditions and spiritual insights of Hebrew, Greek, and Roman times. The result is a document that, while not perfect, is still of inestimable value. (Whether or not the government is routinely breaking that social contract is the topic of another article. Hint: Yes, yes they are.)
The Great “Promissory Note,” as Martin Luther King, Jr. called the Constitution, is the near-perfection of the principles set down in Magna Carta and English Common Law.
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir,” said King. “This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Constitution has not failed the People; the People have failed the Constitution.
The Constitution has been a safeguard of liberty for over 200 years, a timeless check on the excesses of human nature and the corruption that tempts the powerful.
Yet virtue is at the heart of a Republic and without it, ours cannot survive.
“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in a people is a chimerical idea,” as James Madison wrote.
“Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people,” declared George Washington. “The general government can never be in danger of degenerating into any despotic or oppressive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people.”
The Constitution has not failed the People; the People have failed the Constitution. Our great Republic—this “grand experiment”—is faltering in proportion to the strength of our convictions, our sense of right and wrong, and our national character.
John Witherspoon said that, “a republic once equally poised, must either preserve its virtue or lose its liberty, and by some tumultuous revolution, either return to its first principles, or assume a more unhappy form.”
The people of America must once again embrace the “first principles” of America’s founding; we must have a revolution—a turning back—to the last, best hope for mankind: a God-centered republic. There is no middle ground. To move forward, we must turn back to the most progressive ideology the world has ever known—that Freedom is a gift from God and the purpose of the law is to restrain those with the power to otherwise deprive us of it.
“No people will tamely surrender their liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved,” said Samuel Adams.
The greatest danger to a representative republic is a democracy. Pure democracies have always failed, as witnessed by the turbulent history of ancient Athens. Rule by the mob negates the rights of minorities and inevitably leads to tyranny. This has all been tried and demonstrated again and again.
Pure democracy is the kleptocrats’ surest path to power.
The Federalist Papers along with the 
more contemporary book, The Roots of American Order by Russell Kirk both contain a great deal of wisdom demonstrating that democratic rule has been weighed and found wanting. A good reading of these sources makes the current cliché, “a threat to our democracy” ring rather hollow.
As Aristotle wrote, “The middle class is in most states generally small; and the result is that as soon as one or other of the two main classes—the owners of property and the masses—gains the advantage, it oversteps the mean, and drawing the constitution in its own direction it institutes, as the case may be, either a democracy or an oligarchy.”
At present, an oligarchy—which we refer to as “the elite”—is running our country, promoting its own interests at the expense of the American people. They have operated in shadows, paying lip service to the values of the Republic while cleverly undermining them. They’ve had the Administrative State (FBI, DOJ, etc.) playing defense to hide their corruption.
But in recent years, this oligarchy of the elite has been exposed and the People are rising up to take back our representative Republic. Donald Trump and his followers are committed to destroying those who would destroy the Republic, and that is why the Administrative State is constantly attacking those who would “make America great again.”
The American Revolution succeeded because it was based on republican, not democratic principles.
The democratic elite talk about “defending democracy,” not because they genuinely care about the “little people,” but because they know that the mob rule of pure democracies always degrades into chaos, and chaos ushers in tyranny. Pure democracy is the kleptocrats’ surest path to power.
The Roman Empire thrived and grew under its Republic, but once the Republic was overthrown, Roman order decayed into chaos and the often-cruel whims of whichever demagogue and his clients managed to seize authority.
About 1,300 years later, the French Revolution failed, plunging the country into the predictable pattern of rule by the mob, followed by tyranny, followed by oligarchy. The American Revolution succeeded because it was based on republican, not democratic principles. That is why it has been such a relatively long-lived republic.
Only much later did France begin to emulate the American pattern, though not with the same Anglosphere heritage and commitment. Macron, today, is part of the global elite club of cronies pushing the people back toward tyranny. The European people are finally pushing back, struggling to break free of dark despotism parading as progressivism—and invasion parading as immigration—yet the power struggle remains unresolved.
We have a constitutional crisis in America—yes—but our Republic is not yet done; it can still be redeemed. Tearing up or overhauling the Constitution is not the answer; a spiritual awakening is!
“Protecting democracy” is not the concern we should have—that is sophistry and naive to the extreme. Our greatest national imperative is restoring our virtue as a people and renewing our adherence to the timeless principles of the Constitution and our Republic under God.
Americans, rend your hearts, not your documents.
Kelly John Walker is an American statesman, senior writer, and entrepreneur. He is Founder of FreedomTalk, Host of FreedomTalkTV, and a freelance writer published in The Washington Times, Gateway Pundit, The Epoch Times, George Magazine, Andrew Magazine, Newsmax, Townhall, and more. Kelly holds a BA in English & Theology, and a Master of Science degree on a graduate fellowship with the US Department of Defense. He had a distinguished career as a conservation professional before founding two award-winning advertising agencies.
His newest project is the “Fathering in a World Gone Mad” series featuring Eric Metaxas, Victor Marx, Sheriff Mark Lamb, Clay Clark, and more.
