Editorial: The idea of America, under stress

Chicago Tribune

06-07-2025

Four score and seven years ago.
The words — as archaic as they sound to today's ears — still cause a stir in many an American heart. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is rightly celebrated as one of a handful of American political speeches that live on and inspire, because it defines in remarkably economical language the idea of America — what America is supposed to be.
Speaking at the dedication of the military cemetery at Gettysburg in November 1863, Lincoln encapsulated the principles for which so many young Americans had given their lives four months before: 'that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.'
Union Gen. George Meade's troops had repelled Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's forces in the Pennsylvania countryside on the day before the nation's 87th birthday. The following day, July 4, 1863, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant won the monthslong battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi, a strategic triumph. The Civil War would last nearly two more years, but its outcome was determined on that Fourth of July, exactly four score and seven years after this nation's founding.
During this holiday weekend, we think Americans observing the functioning of our government under the second administration of President Donald Trump could use some refreshers on the idea of America, as articulated perfectly by Lincoln, preserved on the battlefield by those Union soldiers, and painstakingly scaffolded by this country's founders some seven-plus decades before that conflagration.
Did we mention that two of those founding fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died on the same day — on the Fourth of July? The passing of the two old rivals — the second and third U.S. presidents; the nation's first frenemies, you might say — occurred on the 50th anniversary of the nation's birth.
There were the rights enumerated in the Jefferson-penned Declaration of Independence — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — and then there was the harder task of ensuring those rights wouldn't be trampled by those who would later govern us. We've heard a lot since Trump's return to power about checks and balances. We now have an executive branch that arguably is the most aggressive in the lifetimes of virtually anyone alive today in terms of acting unilaterally to pursue its agenda.
That is an agenda that has seen people in our country with court-ordered protections seized and sent to foreign prisons. It is an agenda in which members of this administration, including the president himself, are suggesting that some naturalized citizens ought to have their citizenship revoked. (See our Friday editorial.) It is an agenda where the executive branch sees fit to eliminate entire agencies created by law without consulting Congress.
It is, in other words, exactly the kind of behavior about which our founders warned us — and attempted to equip us with the means to resist.
'If men were angels, no government would be necessary,' stated Federalist Paper No. 51 (attributed to either James Madison or Alexander Hamilton), the clearest articulation of the system of checks and balances. 'If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.'
It is one matter to set up a governmental system that prevents any single person from ruling by fiat. It is another matter for the occupants of various offices in those separate branches to exercise the authority given to them to ensure our system of government persists as the framers intended.
That brings us back to the Federalist papers, which provide the best insights into what kept the framers up at night. Madison's Federalist No. 10 fretted about the pernicious effect of 'factions' — what today we call partisanship or division.
Madison identified multiple causes of 'faction,' including one that is particularly resonant right now — 'an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power.' And he memorably described the risk of excessive partisanship: dividing 'mankind into parties, inflam(ing) them with mutual animosity and render(ing) them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.'
We see examples of this phenomenon all too frequently in today's politics. Under this administration, the federal government has in many cases become a threat rather than a support to smaller governing bodies and other institutions. Universities are threatened financially if they don't adhere to Trumpian orthodoxy. Independent media are attacked in court. State and local governments are threatened financially if they don't adopt policies a majority of their citizens don't support.
Madison viewed an empowered federal government as a bulwark against oppressive partisanship, which he thought more likely to emanate from smaller governments. But the framers were fully aware, at the same time, of the risk of cults of personalities and other forms of demagoguery.
When asked whether the U.S. under the then-proposed Constitution would ultimately be a republic or a monarchy, Benjamin Franklin famously responded, 'A republic, if you can keep it.'
Among the many tasks assigned to us as ordinary citizens, there is no more important one than that — preserving our system of government as it was intended to function. Because as our founders knew so well, human nature recoils all too often at the inconveniences and frustrations of self-government.
We are not among those who believe democracy in the U.S. is seriously imperiled, at least as we write. But we do believe it is undergoing a stress test unseen since Lincoln spoke 162 years ago.
'If you can keep it.' Franklin's words for generations have seemed like an historic relic — a window into the nation's infancy. They feel all too current now.