In 1838, Abraham Lincoln, then a State Representative in Illinois, argued that the Constitution should “become the political religion of the nation.”
These words summarised a worldview that would follow him into the 1860s: that the Constitution should command not merely obedience, but reverence.
Political religion — that, indeed, is an apt description of its place in American life.
Few democratic societies relate to their founding covenant with such ritualised devotion. Since Lincoln spoke those words, nearly two centuries ago, only fifteen amendments have since been added, with none having been passed in the last three decades. Today, there is no feasible prospect of another constitutional amendment.
Political rhetoric around the Constitution reveals one of the rare areas of consensus in American society: the vast majority of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike converge in a shared constitutional worship. The Constitution is routinely depicted as a direct legacy of the Founding Fathers; an enduring symbol of the American experience; a foundational, indefatigable cornerstone of national moral identity.
The Constitution is approached like a biblical covenant, and debates over its meaning resemble theological disputes — where challenges to its original purpose are viewed as radical, heretical, un-American.
While some proposed constitutional changes have warranted their rejection, others have more merit, none more so than the Second Amendment. Drafted in 1789 amid fears that a standing army could become an instrument of tyranny, the right to bear arms was conceived as a counterweight to federal overreach.
That historical context seems extraordinarily distant today.
The United States now fields one of the most professionalised military forces in the world — the argument that an armed citizenry constitutes a bulwark against authoritarianism has grown harder to justify. Especially when that same citizenry has produced recurrent cycles of political violence, such as the recent assassinations of Melissa Hortman and Charlie Kirk. Beyond the direct threats such chaos has fuelled, the logic of the constitutional arrangement is in itself a recipe for division:
The Second Amendment simultaneously affirms democratic legitimacy while presupposing its fragility, embedding institutional distrust into the very architecture of the state.
Chief Justice John Roberts inadvertently crystallised the broader tension during recent oral arguments over the Trump administration’s attempt to repeal birthright citizenship. When Solicitor General Bauer invoked the “new world” we live in, Roberts fired back:
“It’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution.”
Roberts is no post-constitutionalist, and undoubtedly did not intended for his words to be framed as such, but the quote is arresting nonetheless. How is it that a 250-year-old document continues to dictate, so narrowly and stringently, the rules of a nation its framers could not have anticipated?
One rebuttal holds that the Constitution requires no further revision; that its architecture is so sound that fifteen amendments across two centuries suffice.
Another contends that its continued relevance is a sign of longevity to be embraced.
Yet endurance is not proof of adequacy. Longevity can signal durability; it can equally signal gridlock. The relevant question is not how long the document has lasted, but whether it continues to provide effective governance. American political culture remains largely tethered to the era of James Madison, relying on judicial interpretation to reconcile 18th-century language with 21st-century realities, clinging to the covenant in a manner that Madison himself warned against:
“[…] Earth belongs to the living, not to the dead, a living generation can bind itself only.”
Constitutional stability, at some point, becomes Constitutional inertia.
The assumption that rethinking the Constitution risks eroding the soul of the nation does not survive comparison with peer democracies. France has revised its constitutional framework five times in two centuries and remains — recognisably — France; its identity, security and republican character intact.
A democracy can adapt its founding document without losing itself. The United States, alone among its peers, treats that proposition as heresy. The Constitution need not be discarded. It need only be demystified.
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