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Hello BARW,

We live in dangerous times. In searching my heart for this month’s message, considering the events of the last few weeks, and thinking about what is going on in our country, I stumbled on this article in The Atlantic written by Adam J White in February 2020. It is a jewel in my opinion and is very apropos to our current situation.

The government set up by James Madison and the other Founders requires a virtuous public and virtuous leaders—or the whole system will fail.

On December 31, 2020, Chief Justice John Roberts sent his Annual Report on the work of the Federal Courts, in it he called on Federal Judges –and everyone else– to invest themselves in the preservation of constitutional democracy.

“Each generation,” he wrote, “has an obligation to pass on to the next, not only a fully functioning government responsive to the needs of the people, but the tools to understand and improve it.” For Roberts, this requires civic education—and something more fundamental than that, too.

What does it take to “keep a republic”? Nearly two and a half centuries into this experiment in self-governance, Americans tend to think that they keep their republic by relying on constitutional structure: separated powers, federalism, checks and balances. But constitutional structure, like any structure, does not maintain itself. Each generation has to maintain its institutions and repair any damage that its predecessors inflicted or allowed. This task begins with civic education, so that Americans know how their government works, and thus what to expect from their constitutional institutions. Yet civic education alone, though necessary, is not sufficient. For civic education to take root and produce its desired fruit, the people themselves must have certain qualities of self-restraint, goodwill, and moderation. Because those virtues are necessary for the functioning of a constitutional republic, they are often called civic virtue, or republican virtue. However, civic virtue requires civility. Here the article also quotes Justice Gorsuch, in an era of fractured politics, the blessings of freedom come “with the duty of having to listen to and tolerate other points of view,” because “democracy depends on our willingness, each one of us, to hear and respect even those with
whom we disagree.” This is something we seem to have forgotten.

These are just some excerpts, but the article spoke to me it is worth the read.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/a-republic-if-we-can-keepit/605887/

Hope to see you on the 25th.

Debbie Roan, BARW President

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