By Jacob Schulz

Enshrined within the American system of politics is the foundational principle, boldly proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence, that governments “deriv[e] their just powers  from the consent of the governed.” That phrase, however, demands more than a single once-and-for-all expression of consent at the formation of the body politic and government. It also encompasses the right of the people to continually exercise their consent, through elections and representatives, in the creation of the laws which govern them. Along with that right, the people also receive a solemn responsibility to guard, in the words of James Madison’s Federalist 57, the “vigilant and manly spirit” which jealously preserves and protects it. Only such a spirit can fulfill Lincoln’s solemn words on the field of Gettysburg and ensure “that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Should the vigilance of the people lapse, however, the consent of the governed is soon overpowered by usurpation from without or rotted by debasement from within. In the 150 years  since Lincoln’s address, both have taken place in the American regime. From without, the  growing administrative state has usurped congress’s legislative power, excluding the people’s  representatives, and accordingly their consent, from the law-making process. The new government which emerged after progressivism, the New Deal, and the Great Society, no longer  derives narrow powers from the consent of the governed but claims expansive powers for a cabal of apolitical experts. The regulatory authority wielded by these unelected and unaccountable administrators has only increased into the present day, rendering the people’s representatives  almost impotent, and their electoral consent nearly vacuous.  

The administrative state’s role in thwarting the consent of the governed, however, is well  known and, in recent years, much discussed. Even if it were to be abolished, however, as the current administration has begun a concerted effort to do, the solution would be incomplete. In order for the consent of the governed to be anything but an empty formality, it requires more than merely a genuinely consent-based constitutional system. A certain internal disposition and character in the citizenry is also required in order to provide the deliberated consensus of rational wills necessary to achieve the common good. In America today, three essential  aspects of that citizen disposition have decayed and degenerated, creating an even more dire threat to the consent of the governed than that posed by the administrative state. 

In America today, three essential  aspects of that citizen disposition have decayed and degenerated, creating an even more dire threat to the consent of the governed than that posed by the administrative state. 

First, the moral character of the people has rotted. Free government by consent requires a  population capable of rational involvement in political decisions, and that necessitates a citizenry  capable of governing and directing themselves through reason and subordinating their baser  passions and desires to it. John Adams rightly recognized the necessity of this moral restraint in  his 1799 letter to the Massachusetts Militia: “We have no Government armed with Power capable  of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Our Constitution was  made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any  other.” Only a populace whose passions are restrained by a strong societal moral fabric canrationally consent to be ruled for the common good. If they are instead made bestial by  enslavement to their basest desires, they can only be ruled by pleasure and pain, and neither  freedom nor democratic government is possible. 

A cursory examination of twenty-first century America in light of Adam’s words paints a  dim picture. Pervasive addiction, no-fault divorce, rampant extra-marital pregnancies, and a host  of other societal vices have eviscerated the moral fabric of the nation, leaving millions of  Americans debased far below rational participation in politics. Even those who have escaped  such degeneracy almost entirely lack the civic knowledge necessary for their consent to be anything but a laughable formality; to name just one dismal statistic among many, the Annenberg Public Policy center found that only 7%  of Americans in 2024 could correctly enumerate all five of their first amendment rights. That “vigilant and manly spirit” upon which Madison rested so much in Federalist 57 has been  displaced in most of the population by a spirit of ignorance, apathy, and dissipation. The majority  of Americans, it seems, are no longer the kind of people upon whose consent a republican  government can be built. 

Even if the citizenry is morally and rationally capable of republican government,  however, a second desideratum must also be met: government by consent is impossible without,  in the words of James Madison’s 1798 Virginia Resolutions, “the right of freely examining public characters and measures,  and of free communication among the people thereon.” This right, which Madison calls “the only effectual guardian of every other right,” must be preserved, or the consent of the governed  becomes a meaningless farce at best, and a tool for tyrants at worst. One need look no further than the totalitarian regimes which litter the pages of history or the sobering fiction of writers such as George Orwell to see the power of propaganda to cloak vile tyranny under a veneer of apparent legitimacy through the manipulated consent of the oppressed. 

The safeguards in the First Amendment have so far kept America far from the realm of  Orwell’s dystopia, but on the world stage, with countries such as Great Britain and Canada criminalizing dissent and debate on a dizzying scale, America has become increasingly alone in defending free speech. Worse yet, while the latest election has temporarily halted similar tendencies in America, the willingness to accept and promote such measures persists among large swathes of the population, threatening the public deliberation which makes reasoned consent possible. More subtle but equally insidious are engagement-driven social media algorithms which, coupled with a bottomless supply of biased news and the natural human propensity toward confirmation bias, funnel more and more Americans into political echo-chambers in which the concept of a rational opponent disagreeing becomes unthinkable.

This ever-increasing polarization undermines the third essential prerequisite for consent of the governed: unity as a body politic. In the twenty-first century, the citizens George Washington’s farewell address once extolled as having “the same Religion, Manners, Habits, and Political  Principles” could scarcely seem more disunited and divided. Political discourse, though always sharp, now has a dire edge perhaps not seen since the Civil War, with each side viewing the other  as an existential threat to the nation. Agreement or even politeness are, of course, not necessary conditions for the consent of the governed; however, vitriolic hatred between two increasingly demarcated sides must eventually mean a de facto revocation of the first and most fundamental type of consent—consent to form one body politic and government. If that consent, and the unity of purpose toward the common good which it brings, cannot be relied upon, all other forms of consent become meaningless; those who will not consent to be part of the same people can never consent to be governed by the same laws. 

If that consent, and the unity of purpose toward the common good which it brings, cannot be relied upon, all other forms of consent become meaningless; those who will not consent to be part of the same people can never consent to be governed by the same laws. 

Today, that mutual consent and unity of purpose which once bound America together as a  nation indeed seems strained to the breaking point, and she has fallen from the ideals upon which  she was founded. The political regime her constitution established has been mutilated, the  character of her citizens has decayed, and the consent of the governed has all but disappeared from her political process. Nevertheless, though the bonds of affection which hold her people together are strained to the breaking point, they have been strained—even broken—before, and still America has endured. As long as she endures, there is hope that the moral character of her citizens may be renewed, the just limitations of her government may be rebuilt, and the consent of the governed may be restored. As long as she endures, there remains the same hope which Lincoln cherished during this nation’s darkest hour—the hope that “government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Photo by Isaiah Sasser.