America the Durable

On August 8, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia considered some miscellaneous amendments to the evolving text of Article I of the Constitution. In his notes from that day, James Madison recorded that, when he made brief remarks about how the proposed ratio of members to constituents in the House of Representatives would eventually render the House too big as the nation grew over decades, Massachusetts delegate Nathaniel Gorham objected to thinking so far ahead as pointless. “It is not to be supposed that the government will last so long as to produce this effect,” Madison quoted Gorham as saying. “Can it be supposed that this vast Country, including the Western territory, will 150 years hence remain one nation?”

It was a perfectly reasonable question. The American experiment in republicanism always seemed very precarious to its own founders. Gorham’s implicit sense that the United States might just be one transitional chapter in a story that would see numerous regimes rise and fall on this continent was widely shared.

About the Author

Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin is the director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor of National Affairs. His most recent book is American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation -- and Could Again.

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On August 8, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia considered some miscellaneous amendments to the evolving text of Article I of the Constitution. In his notes from that day, James Madison recorded that, when he made brief remarks about how the proposed ratio of members to constituents in the House of Representatives would eventually render the House too big as the nation grew over decades, Massachusetts delegate Nathaniel Gorham objected to thinking so far ahead as pointless. “It is not to be supposed that the government will last so long as to produce this effect,” Madison quoted Gorham as saying. “Can it be supposed that this vast Country, including the Western territory, will 150 years hence remain one nation?”

It was a perfectly reasonable question. The American experiment in republicanism always seemed very precarious to its own founders. Gorham’s implicit sense that the United States might just be one transitional chapter in a story that would see numerous regimes rise and fall on this continent was widely shared.

About the Author

Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin is the director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor of National Affairs. His most recent book is American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation -- and Could Again.