‘A Republic, if You Can Keep It’
By: Josh Hammer
July 2, 2026
It’s hard to believe, but our great nation celebrates its 250th birthday this Saturday. May that celebration, as Declaration of Independence signee and then-future President John Adams put in a letter to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776, “be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
The United States is the oldest continuously functioning constitutional republic of its kind. Empires have risen and fallen. Monarchies have been toppled. Tyrannies have met the ash heap of history. Countless other republics have succumbed to faction, corruption, and decadence. Yet through civil war, depressions, world wars, a century-long “march through the institutions” by the Marxist Left, and so much more, the American constitutional order has endured. Indeed, in many (though not all) ways, it has thrived.
Our nation was built on, and is still dependent upon, a series of assumptions—both explicit and implicit—about sociology, morality, and human nature itself. The Framers understood that parchment barriers alone could never preserve liberty or secure the “common good of society.” Institutions and constitutional structure matter, but institutions and structures are ultimately only as healthy and stable as the people who fill them and imbue them with life.
Adams later summarized this truth with characteristic clarity: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Adams understood that constitutional government presupposes a citizenry that is morally and intellectually capable of governing itself.
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At its quarter-millennium mark, America must discover anew the sinews of self-governance.
By: Josh Hammer
July 2, 2026
It’s hard to believe, but our great nation celebrates its 250th birthday this Saturday. May that celebration, as Declaration of Independence signee and then-future President John Adams put in a letter to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776, “be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
The United States is the oldest continuously functioning constitutional republic of its kind. Empires have risen and fallen. Monarchies have been toppled. Tyrannies have met the ash heap of history. Countless other republics have succumbed to faction, corruption, and decadence. Yet through civil war, depressions, world wars, a century-long “march through the institutions” by the Marxist Left, and so much more, the American constitutional order has endured. Indeed, in many (though not all) ways, it has thrived.
Our nation was built on, and is still dependent upon, a series of assumptions—both explicit and implicit—about sociology, morality, and human nature itself. The Framers understood that parchment barriers alone could never preserve liberty or secure the “common good of society.” Institutions and constitutional structure matter, but institutions and structures are ultimately only as healthy and stable as the people who fill them and imbue them with life.
Adams later summarized this truth with characteristic clarity: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Adams understood that constitutional government presupposes a citizenry that is morally and intellectually capable of governing itself.
MORE>
‘A Republic, if You Can Keep It’ | Frontpage Mag
At its quarter-millennium mark, America must discover anew the sinews of self-governance.