The Constitution — key to a more perfect union

In a recent Friday Forum entitled, “The Constitution Is the Solution to the Politics of Division,” Yuval Levin called for a reappreciation of the U.S. Constitution as key to preserving national unity. Author of American Covenant and Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at AEI, Levin addressed reforms needed in Congress, the presidency and judiciary.

“Becoming reacquainted with the Constitution through the lens of the challenge of unity is actually an essential first step for the problems we face right now,” he said.

“The challenge of unity and cohesion was very much on the mind of the authors of the Constitution and very high among their aims,” he said. After all, the first purpose laid out in the preamble of the new governing document is to form a more perfect union.

“Madison is insistent that Americans should not give up on the prospect of living as one unified nation. Unity is achievable provided that we don’t expect it to mean unanimity.” 

A better definition, says Levin, is the capacity to act together despite differences – something the Constitution was brilliantly designed to do. “It does so in its various institutional forms – especially those we find frustrating. It offers ways of compelling competition and negotiation among divergent factions to drive them toward common action, almost despite themselves.”

Features such as separation of powers, checks and balances, and even the Senate filibuster, are designed to force narrow majorities to grow through bargaining and negotiation. “In our system, meaningful policy victory requires broad coalitions, not just narrow majorities.”

Unfortunately, the tendency of both parties for the past 50 years has been to centralize power in leadership rather than build cross-party coalitions. “Congress is where the basic work of acting together when we don’t think alike is supposed to happen,” said Levin. “That’s why it is especially a problem to find the attitude in Congress that working with the other side is a failure or betrayal…We have reached a point where Congress is too weak.”

“To find our way out of it, we have to recognize the purpose of the institution is to enable bargaining to happen…Reforms of Congress should make cross-partisan bargaining more likely rather than less necessary.”

“Don’t give up on the Constitution,” he concluded. “It was intended to address exactly the kinds of problems we now confront…The question is not whether the Constitution is up to this challenge, but whether we are up to the challenge of taking the Constitution seriously. I hope so. Hope is a virtue that invites action.”

“Groups like [Faith and Law] – people getting together on what counts as a snowy day in Washington to think about these questions — is one reason to have hope.”

Thank you, Yuval, for this succinct diagnosis of our present national disunity, the encouragement to affirm Constitutional norms and exigencies, and to always act with hope.