Yuval Levin’s Stirring Defense of the Constitution

Something has gone wrong with America. Even among the politically disengaged, one can detect a certain malaise, a vague feeling that this country’s best days are behind her. More activist critics, on the Right and Left alike, have far clearer diagnoses of the problem. They believe this growing dissatisfaction with the American order can be blamed on our Constitution itself—something about the founding of this nation fails to live up to the highest aspirations of the human soul, and our continued allegiance to that Founding hinders our pursuit of the common good.

Not everyone has lost faith in the Constitution, however. Yuval Levin, the noted conservative intellectual, has stepped into the breach to defend the document’s honor in his latest book, American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation―and Could Again. He believes that, far from being the source of our problems, the American Founding can teach us the best solution to our present discontent. To deal with the growing crisis of faith, he directs our attention to the wisdom at the heart of the Constitution. 

Many of the sharpest critics of the Constitution fault it for its “liberalism.” Progressives and leftists argue that the limits it places on centralized power hinder the pursuit of social equity. Reactionaries and other right-wing critics argue that those limits block the government from imposing virtue on the people. Therefore, both camps turn to illiberal politics that would empower their respective faction as a vanguard party of a new order. For them, the Constitution is a mere stumbling block we must overcome as we race towards a more perfect society.

In the midst of all this sound and fury, a veritable cottage industry has emerged to produce defenses of “liberalism.” Many classical liberals and libertarians are attempting to renew a utilitarian or economic case for limited government. Centrists in both parties have urged extremists to respect the “neutral public square” and laud the post-war period of bipartisanship. But none of these arguments has been persuasive—American politics remains caught between warring factions, caught in a downward cycle of bitter partisanship and endless dissatisfaction. 

Read more at The Russell Kirk Center.