Tuesday, millions of Americans will cast their ballot in presidential primaries and caucuses in 15 states and one territory around the country. Since We the People exercise our sovereign authority indirectly through elected officials, voting is one of the most important things a citizen in our constitutional democratic republic can do. But voting is not enough.
Those who designed our Constitution intended it to work with a citizenry who were more than just voters. As legend has it, Benjamin Franklin was asked by a woman, after emerging from the secret and monthslong meetings of the Constitutional Convention, what type of government the Convention had proposed to the people. His supposed response was, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Whether or not this conversation occurred, it reminds us that the people are responsible for “keeping” the republic. And while our Constitution’s designers felt the people must have many virtues for our system of government to function properly, there are three I’s especially worth remembering: being informed, involved and independent.
Informed
Thomas Jefferson was so concerned about the need for informed citizens for the success of this great experiment in republican self-government that he founded a university: the University of Virginia. Ronald Reagan reiterated this theme in more recent times with a call for “informed patriots.”
What exactly must our nation’s citizens be informed about?
First, the nature of our constitutional system, which is so much more than just how a bill becomes law. That includes familiarity with the core principles of the Constitution: popular sovereignty, the separation of powers, federalism, the protection of rights, the rule of law and equal justice.
Second, we must know our history, the inspiring and the ignominious. It gives us context for our own time. Knowing the good helps us want to accomplish good in our day, and connects us to earlier Americans who did likewise. Knowing the bad helps us avoid similar mistakes. As Winston Churchill once wrote, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Third, we must be informed about current events and actions taken by our government. We are the overseers of our government officials. If we don’t know what they’re doing or failing to do, how can we hold them accountable?
Fourth, while we need to know the policy positions of candidates and officials, we must also know their character. Policy positions change, character tends to be constant. The scoundrel and the saint are unlikely to change once they get into office, especially the former. So investigating who people are is just as crucial, if not more so, than what they propose doing once elected (particularly since events can throw those plans out the window and make character so much more important).
John Adams once observed that, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The same could be said about our government leaders. In fact, so concerned were the Framers of our Constitution about the character of the president, for example, that they designed the elaborate Electoral College to help filter out those who would not be fit for the office. (The Electoral College functions differently today than it was initially conceived.)
Involved
Being informed is necessary but not sufficient. Armed with knowledge, we must then act for our government system to succeed. One of the most important actions we take, after casting an informed vote, is passing on constitutional literacy to the next generation. Just as a language can die out in one generation if the rising generation is not tutored in its tongue, so can an understanding of and appreciation for our Constitution, which would be fatal to our republic.
There are other ways to be involved. We can persuade others, using reason rather than passion, as Abraham Lincoln urged in his famous 1838 Lyceum Address. Said he, “Passion ... will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense. Let those materials be molded into general intelligence, sound morality and, in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.”
We can assemble, speak and petition our government. We can serve in government or in parties. We can donate money to individuals or groups. And, in some states, we can seek to amend the law or the state constitution, among other things. This is more than any one person can possibly do, but everyone can at least do something. That won’t be easy. It will require sacrifice. But while the rent for living in a republic is not cheap, it costs much less than the alternative.
Independent
Independence is in our blood. Our political forebears were not content to let others be our rulers, throwing off the most powerful nation in the world to strike out on what others thought was doomed for failure: governing ourselves. That spirit of independence and liberty continued with the struggle for emancipation, and then equal treatment and civil rights, by Black Americans. And it has been manifested by other groups as well.
Our nation’s Founders envisioned a people that had a certain degree of independence. In his 1796 farewell address, George Washington expressed hope “that the free constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; tha(t), in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete.”
But for this hope to be more than wishful thinking, he raised the “warnings of a parting friend.” Among the dangers he highlighted was that of political party, which seldom has the interest of the whole nation at heart, and which he feared would become “potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”
While Washington admitted that “the spirit of party” exists in all governments, he warned that its “baleful effects” can “gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.”
Thus, Washington observed that “the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.” In sum, he counseled on having at least some independence from political parties.
In short, if you are in a state holding an election Tuesday, please vote. And then, also remember that in order to keep our republic, a little more is required of We the People.