The Republic on Trial

An imagined interview synthesizing the documented principles, warnings, and recorded views of America’s Founders

Introduction: Inviting the Dead to Speak

Interviewer:
Gentlemen, the United States you helped create still exists—but it looks very different from the one you imagined. The Constitution remains, yet trust in institutions is eroding. Power is increasingly centralized. Citizens now speak of one another less as neighbors and more as enemies.

I would like to ask how you view the current state of the American republic—through the lens of your own words, warnings, and intentions.

George Washington:
If the Constitution yet stands, then the question is not whether the republic survives—but whether its people still deserve it.

I. On Power and Human Ambition

Interviewer:
You designed a system built on limits, assuming that power would always seek to expand. Has that assumption proven correct?

James Madison:
It has proven not merely correct, but incomplete. We feared ambition because we understood human nature. What we did not anticipate was how willingly the people themselves might excuse it—so long as it came from their own faction.

The Constitution was not written to restrain angels. It was written to restrain men who believe themselves righteous.

Alexander Hamilton:
Power does not corrupt because it is sought by villains. It corrupts because it is exercised by men convinced they are indispensable. When leaders come to believe the nation cannot function without them, liberty becomes an inconvenience rather than a principle.

Thomas Jefferson:
I feared concentrated power because it rarely announces itself as tyranny. It arrives as efficiency. As necessity. As protection from chaos. By the time the people recognize it, they have already surrendered the means to resist it lawfully.

II. On Career Politicians and Permanence in Office

Interviewer:
Many Americans now spend decades in public office, accumulating influence and wealth. Was this expected?

Washington:
It was feared.

Public service was meant to be a duty—temporary and reluctant—not a profession to be defended at all costs. When holding office becomes a livelihood, the officeholder will defend the office before the republic.

Madison:
A dependence on the people alone was to be the safeguard of liberty. But a politician who no longer fears replacement does not depend on the people—he manages them.

Hamilton:
A permanent political class inevitably separates itself from those it governs. When that occurs, the language of representation becomes theater, and policy becomes self-preservation.

III. On Congress Abdicating Its Responsibilities

Interviewer:
Congress today often defers to the executive branch, avoiding difficult decisions while retaining power in theory. What would you make of that?

Madison:
A legislature that relinquishes its authority out of convenience does not preserve liberty—it accelerates its erosion.

We divided power not to slow government, but to prevent its abuse. When one branch grows idle, another will grow dangerous.

Hamilton:
An energetic executive was never meant to be an unchecked one. When legislators trade responsibility for safety, they invite exactly the dominance they later pretend to oppose.

IV. On Violence Between Countrymen

Interviewer:
In recent years, political protests have devolved into violence—citizens attacking citizens, property being destroyed, institutions overwhelmed. How would you view Americans turning on one another in the streets?

Washington:
With sorrow—and with condemnation.

No foreign enemy could do more damage to this republic than citizens taught to see their countrymen as enemies. Violence between Americans is not political expression. It is national failure.

Madison:
Faction is inevitable. Violence is not.

When disagreements abandon persuasion and turn to force, the Constitution becomes irrelevant—not because it failed, but because it was discarded.

Hamilton:
A mob does not defend liberty. It consumes it.

Those who excuse violence because it serves their cause forget that force recognizes no loyalty. Once unleashed, it answers only to itself.

Jefferson:
Disorder may signal injustice—but violence corrodes the very freedom it claims to defend. When countrymen strike one another, the republic fractures along lines that cannot easily be repaired.

V. On Politicians Who Incite or Excuse Violence

Interviewer:
What of political leaders who use inflammatory language—who excuse, encourage, or rationalize violence committed by their supporters?

Washington:
They are not leaders. They are arsonists standing amid the flames they lit.

To inflame passions one cannot control is not courage—it is betrayal.

Madison:
A statesman who encourages violence has already abandoned argument. He has conceded that his ideas cannot stand on their own merits.

Force is the refuge of those who have failed to persuade.

Hamilton:
Such men gamble with the republic to preserve their relevance. They believe they can harness chaos without being consumed by it. History shows they are always wrong.

Jefferson:
Rebellion born of desperation is not the same as violence orchestrated by ambition. The former warns a republic to correct itself. The latter poisons it beyond recognition.

VI. On the Press, Public Opinion, and Manufactured Reality

Interviewer:
Public opinion today is shaped rapidly—often emotionally—by media and political messaging. How does this affect a republic?

Madison:
A free press was meant to inform judgment, not replace it. When citizens are fed outrage instead of facts, they become instruments rather than participants.

Hamilton:
A people governed by emotion are easily steered by those who understand how to provoke it. The louder the noise, the less room there is for reason.

Jefferson:
An informed citizenry is the only legitimate guardian of liberty. A manipulated one will surrender it willingly.

VII. Are We Still a Republic?

Interviewer:
If you were asked whether the United States still resembles the republic you envisioned—how would you answer?

Washington:
A republic is not sustained by parchment. It is sustained by character.

If Americans continue to excuse corruption, reward demagoguery, and tolerate violence among themselves, no constitution—however well written—can save them.

Madison:
The system can endure flaws. It cannot endure contempt for its principles.

Hamilton:
Liberty does not collapse from attack alone. It collapses when its defenders decide the rules no longer apply to them.

Jefferson:
The tree of liberty does not die from neglect alone—but from those who claim to tend it while cutting its roots.

VIII. What Would You Do to Preserve the Republic?

Interviewer:
If the republic you founded were showing these signs—violence between citizens, leaders exploiting division, institutions failing to check power—what corrective actions would you take?

Washington:
I would begin with example.

No law can substitute for character. When leaders cling to office, excuse violence, or inflame passions for advantage, they teach the people that the republic is merely a tool. I would demand—publicly and without hesitation—that those entrusted with power relinquish it when their service is complete, speak with restraint, and condemn disorder regardless of its source.

Madison:
I would restore the Constitution to its proper function.

The danger is not that the system lacks safeguards, but that those safeguards are no longer exercised. Congress must reclaim its authority. Power must again be divided, contested, and restrained. When ambition checks ambition, liberty survives. When institutions grow timid, power consolidates.

Hamilton:
I would enforce the law—consistently and without favoritism.

A government that tolerates disorder invites tyranny in response. Violence excused today becomes precedent tomorrow. Authority must be firm enough to protect liberty, or liberty will be surrendered to restore order later.

Jefferson:
I would return the republic to the people—fully informed and fully engaged.

A citizenry that is educated, vigilant, and active in local governance is the strongest defense against corruption and centralization. Reform is not failure; it is renewal. But reform must come through law and persuasion—not fear, not force, and never through manipulation.

Interviewer:
And if those corrective measures were ignored?

Washington:
Then the fault would not lie with the Constitution.

Madison:
Nor with the principles of republican government.

Hamilton:
But with those who preferred power to restraint.

Jefferson:
And with a people who mistook passion for liberty.

IX. On Disagreement, Restraint, and the Survival of the Union

Interviewer:
Gentlemen, it is well documented that you did not always agree with one another regarding how the United States should be organized and governed. In some cases, your disagreements were profound. How did you handle these divisions among yourselves?

Washington:
We argued—often forcefully. But we did so with the understanding that the Union itself was not the prize to be won or lost.

Personal victory meant nothing if the republic failed. Disagreement was inevitable; disunion was not.

Madison:
We assumed disagreement. In fact, the Constitution was built upon it.

Our task was not to eliminate conflict, but to channel it—into debate, compromise, and structure. We contended with ideas, not with one another’s legitimacy. Once persuasion failed, we did not reach for force. We returned to argument.

Hamilton:
There were moments when our disputes were sharp enough to fracture the room. But none of us believed disagreement justified destruction.

I fought fiercely for my vision of the republic. Yet I accepted outcomes I opposed when they were reached lawfully. That restraint—not consensus—is what preserved the experiment.

Jefferson:
We trusted that no single man possessed the whole truth.

When disagreement arose, we wrote. We debated. We compromised. And when compromise proved impossible, we deferred to the judgment of the people or the process itself. The republic was always more important than being right.

Interviewer:
What would you say to modern Americans who view political disagreement as evidence of betrayal rather than difference?

Washington:
They have confused conviction with intolerance.

Madison:
They have mistaken disagreement for danger.

Hamilton:
They have forgotten that losing an argument is not oppression.

Jefferson:
And they risk destroying the very system that allows them to disagree freely.

Conclusion: The Remedy Was Never a Secret

The Founders did not leave behind a mystery.

They warned that republics fail not because they lack laws, but because they abandon them. Not because they face disagreement, but because they excuse violence. Not because leaders err, but because they are rewarded for it.

Their remedy was demanding, not radical:

Restraint in power.
Condemnation of political violence.
Institutions willing to assert authority.
Leaders willing to relinquish it.
A citizenry unwilling to be ruled by fear or faction.

The Founders did not agree—but they shared a discipline modern politics has abandoned.

They argued without dehumanizing.
They lost votes without delegitimizing the system.
They compromised without surrendering principle.
And they placed the survival of the republic above personal triumph.

They understood something we seem to have forgotten:

A republic does not require unanimity.
It requires restraint.
It requires persuasion over force.
And it requires citizens and leaders who value the Union more than winning the moment.

The danger facing the United States today is not disagreement.
It is the refusal to handle disagreement as free people once did.

The question is no longer what the Founders would do.
The question is whether Americans will do what they already told us was required.

Note on Sources and Attribution

This article is a fictionalized interview. The dialogue is not presented as verbatim quotation. Each response is a literary synthesis grounded in the Founders’ documented writings, correspondence, speeches, and recorded positions.

The sources below identify the primary texts that inform the views and themes attributed to each figure. Language has been adapted for clarity and coherence while remaining faithful to the historical record.

Source Appendix

George Washington

Faction, party spirit, internal animosity, and political violence

• Farewell Address (1796)
  – Warnings that party spirit “kindles the animosity of one part against another,” opens the door to “riot and insurrection,” and invites foreign and domestic despotism.

Civic virtue, morality, and national character

• Farewell Address (1796)
  – Assertion that morality and virtue are necessary supports of popular government.

Union, justice, and republican disposition

• Circular Letter to the States (June 8, 1783)
  – Emphasis on national unity, public justice, and civic disposition as prerequisites for republican survival.

James Madison

Faction as inevitable; danger of violence and societal convulsion

• Federalist No. 10
  – Discussion of factions “inflamed into mutual animosity,” producing “violence” and “convuls[ing] the society.”

Checks and balances; restraint of power

• Federalist No. 51
  – “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”
  – The Constitution designed to govern men, not angels.

Separation of powers and legislative responsibility

• Federalist Nos. 47–51
  – Structural necessity of each branch actively exercising its authority to prevent consolidation and abuse.

Alexander Hamilton

Energetic but accountable executive authority

• Federalist No. 70
  – Energy in the executive as essential to good government, steady administration of the laws, and protection against faction and anarchy.

Rule of law over passion or force

• Federalist No. 78
  – Judiciary described as exercising “judgment” rather than “force or will,” underscoring constitutional governance over mob impulse.

Disorder, insurrection, and the danger of mob rule

• Correspondence surrounding Shays’ Rebellion (1786–1787)
  – Expressions of alarm that unchecked disorder threatens republican government and invites authoritarian correction.

Thomas Jefferson

Press, public opinion, and an informed citizenry

• Jefferson to Edward Carrington (January 16, 1787)
  – Argument that a free press is essential, but only when the people are educated enough to read and judge it.

Rebellion as a warning signal—not an endorsement of chaos

• Jefferson to William Stephens Smith (November 13, 1787)
  – Rebellions described as symptoms of grievance or ignorance, not proof of popular wickedness; emphasis on education over repression.

Periodic renewal and resistance to generational stagnation

• Jefferson to James Madison (September 6, 1789)
  – “The earth belongs to the living,” arguing against permanent authority binding future generations without reform.

Suspicion of concentrated power and elite manipulation

• Jefferson–Madison correspondence (1787–1789)
  – Repeated warnings that centralized authority and entrenched interests threaten liberty, even when cloaked in popular rhetoric.

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Dave Chamberlin served 38 years in the USAF and Air National Guard as an aircraft crew chief, where he retired as a CMSgt. He has held a wide variety of technical, instructor, consultant, and leadership positions in his more than 40 years of civilian and military aviation experience. Dave holds an FAA Airframe and Powerplant license from the FAA, as well as a Master’s degree in Aeronautical Science. He currently runs his own consulting and training company and has written for numerous trade publications.

His true passion is exploring and writing about issues facing the military, and in particular, aircraft maintenance personnel.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.