Civitas No. 5
On Renewal, and Why Free Governments Must Re-Authorize Themselves
To The People of the United States:
No government founded on consent can presume that consent to be permanent. Authority, once granted, does not carry with it an indefinite warrant. It must be renewed, reaffirmed, and, when necessary, corrected. This is not a weakness of republican government; it is its defining strength.
Free governments differ from all others not in their immunity from error, but in their capacity for lawful self-correction. They do not depend upon the virtue of rulers alone, nor upon the patience of the governed, but upon mechanisms that allow accumulated strain to be addressed before it hardens into rupture. Where such mechanisms exist and are used, liberty may endure. Where they exist but are neglected, liberty decays by default.
No power should be permanent without renewal. This principle, though often treated as radical, is deeply republican. Temporary grants, periodic review, and conditional authorization were once understood as ordinary safeguards against abuse. They recognized that circumstances change, that purposes drift, and that authority justified in one moment may become unjustified in another. To require renewal is not to invite instability; it is to prevent stagnation.
Modern governance has largely abandoned this discipline. Powers are granted broadly and indefinitely; programs persist long after their rationale has faded; emergency measures become administrative routines. Review, where it occurs, is often internal and perfunctory. Re-authorization is avoided, not because it is dangerous, but because it is inconvenient. In this way, authority accumulates not by deliberate choice, but by inertia.
This condition is not the result of constitutional failure, but of constitutional neglect. The Framers anticipated moments when the existing arrangements would prove inadequate to new realities. They provided a remedy commensurate with the gravity of such moments: amendment. Article V was not designed for constant use, nor for trivial adjustments. It was designed for periods of accumulated strain -- when interpretation has stretched too far, when practice has departed from principle, and when correction requires the explicit consent of The People.
That this mechanism has fallen into disuse does not diminish its importance. It underscores it. A society that relies on informal adaptation rather than formal renewal postpones conflict rather than resolving it. What cannot be corrected lawfully is eventually challenged unlawfully. History offers no exception to this rule.
The alternative to renewal is not stability, but fragility. A system that cannot correct itself openly must either harden or fracture. In such systems, dissent is no longer channeled through lawful means, but driven toward confrontation. The danger is not that renewal will invite discord, but that its absence will ensure it.
This paper does not propose a catalogue of reforms, nor does it urge immediate action. Its purpose is more modest and more urgent: to restore the understanding that lawful correction is both possible and necessary. The Constitution was not meant to spare The People the effort of self-government. It was meant to require it.
Renewal demands patience, discipline, and restraint. It requires persuasion rather than coercion, consensus rather than command. These are demanding standards, but they are the price of liberty. To abandon them in favor of convenience is to accept a quieter, more gradual loss.
The question before the American people is not whether change will occur, but how. Change achieved through deliberate consent strengthens legitimacy. Change achieved through accumulation and evasion weakens it. Change deferred too long risks arriving by force rather than law.
A free government must therefore do more than endure. It must re-authorize itself -- not continuously, but conscientiously; not impulsively, but deliberately. Where this work is undertaken in time, self-government remains possible. Where it is postponed indefinitely, the choice narrows, and the cost rises.
Renewal is not a threat to the constitutional order. It is the means by which that order survives.
Restoration, not Rupture.
Civitas Americana