By Douglas V. Gibbs
Contrary to the fashionable claim that the Constitution is somehow outdated, irrelevant, or too “rigid” for modern society, the truth is precisely the opposite. The Constitution remains the most successful framework for limited government in human history. It is a brilliant structure designed not to restrain the people, but to restrain the government. It encourages liberty, secures free‑market prosperity, and stands as a bulwark against the very tyranny that always waits at the edges of human ambition.
Those who dismiss the Constitution as antiquated reveal not a flaw in the document, but a flaw in their understanding of human nature. The Founding Fathers knew something timeless: power always seeks to centralize and accumulate, and without imposed boundaries upon it, it devours. The Constitution is the cage that keeps the roaring lion under control and prevents it from wandering into our lives.
It is true that over time we have lost many of the structural protections the Framers put in place. The slow drift toward pure democracy, a system the Founders openly warned against, has eroded the careful balance of our republic.
• The 17th Amendment severed the States’ direct voice in the U.S. Senate.
• The 16th Amendment handed the federal government a direct pipeline into the people’s wallets, bypassing the States entirely.
• The ongoing push to tinker with or abolish the Electoral College seeks to erase the federal nature of our Union and replace it with a national plebiscite dominated by a handful of population centers.
These changes have weakened the original architecture, no question. But even with these flaws, the Constitution remains the longest‑standing, most stable, and most liberty‑producing governing document ever written. No other nation has enjoyed such continuity, lifting more people out of poverty than any other civilization, providing more opportunity for success throughout history, and serving as a the most durable framework for self‑government in history.
The endurance of the Constitution is not an accident. It is the product of design.
James Madison in Federalist Paper #45 explained the proper division of power with elegant clarity: the federal government is responsible for external matters and issues affecting the Union as a whole, while the States handle the internal concerns of their communities. Keeping the federal government out of the states regarding state issues was the point – while empowering the federal government to handle the issues that are needed to be handled by a central system like foreign affairs, communication between he states through systems like the Postal Service, mediating disputes that cross state lines, securing the border and ensuring foreign actors who are dangerous to our communities are apprehended and deported, and waging war whenever it is absolutely necessary. This was the operating system researched, debated and created for the purpose of establishing a republic that serves its citizens, maintains liberty, and can defend itself against ideologies that seek to destroy it.
The distribution of power is a simple recipe. Local government for local issues. State government for state issues. Federal government for national issues that preserve, protect, and promote the Union.
This layered structure was designed not only to be efficient, but also protective. It keeps power close to the people who must live under it. It prevents distant officials from micromanaging the daily lives of citizens they will never meet. It ensures that the federal government remains a servant, not a master. But, the lion in the cage can be unleashed on America’s enemies, whoever and wherever they may be.
The American system was built on the radical idea that individuals are not subjects of the state. We are free to pursue our own lives, our own callings, and our own dreams. The government, according to the Bill of Rights, shall make no laws interfering with our pursuit of happiness through our Natural Rights. Government was not intended to be there to grant us permission, but to get out of our way because our God-given rights pre‑exist government.
The Constitution does not create liberty.
It recognizes liberty.
It secures liberty.
And it limits the government that would otherwise swallow liberty whole.
This is why America became the most prosperous country in history: Free individuals, operating in free markets, under a government intentionally shackled by constitutional boundaries. That is the formula, and it has worked beautifully. It still works. And every attempt to establish systems unlike it anywhere in the world, based on collectivist schemes, has failed wherever it has been tried.
The Constitution endures because truth and liberty based on a godly foundation endures.
The Constitution remains relevant because human nature has not changed. Ambition still seeks power. Bureaucracy still expands. Politicians still promise the world with other people’s money. And every generation still produces those who believe liberty is too unpredictable, too unruly, or too dangerous. No matter the generation, there is always those who believe that centralized authority can manage society better than free individuals can.
The Founders understood this temptation. They had seen it in kings, parliaments, and empires. They knew it would reappear in new forms, wearing new slogans, wrapped in new moral language. That is why they built a system that does not rely on the virtue of leaders, but on the limitation of leaders and the power of the rule of law – The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.
The Constitution is not a relic; it is a restraint upon government based upon godly virtue.
The real question is not whether the Constitution is outdated, but whether we capable of defending its timeless principles. When critics say the Constitution is irrelevant, what they really mean is that they find its limits inconvenient. They want government to do things the Constitution does not authorize. They want power without boundaries, authority without accountability, and outcomes without the consent of the governed.
But the Constitution does not bend to the fashions of the moment. It was written to outlast them.
The question is not whether the Constitution still works.
The question is whether we still have the discipline to work within it.
Benjamin Franklin famously responded to Elizabeth Powel when she asked about the system created by the Constitution in 1787, “a republic, if you can keep it.” Keeping it requires more than nostalgia. It requires understanding the structure, respecting the limits, and recognizing that liberty is not the natural state of government. Throughout history tyranny and oligarchies have dominated the landscape. Liberty is the exception. Liberty is difficult to achieve, and it is difficult to maintain. Tyranny is the default setting of human power. The Constitution was created to be the firewall.
Even with the damage done by the 16th and 17th Amendments, even with the erosion of federalism, even with the constant pressure to nationalize every issue and centralize every decision, the framework still stands. It still secures our rights. It still works when we allow it to, defend it, and do what we can to operate within the system it created.
The path forward is not reinvention. It is restoration. America does not need a new system. It needs a renewed commitment to the one that already works.
• Restore federalism.
• Reassert the sovereignty of the States regarding state issues.
• Re‑embrace the Electoral College as the safeguard of a federal republic and a protection against the excesses of democracy.
• Limit the federal government to its enumerated powers.
• Return local issues to local hands.
• Trust free people to build free lives.
This is not radical. It is the original design.
The Constitution remains to this day the greatest political achievement in human history. No other country has enjoyed such stability, such prosperity, or such enduring liberty. No other governing document has lasted as long or produced as much opportunity. The Constitution is not merely relevant, it is indispensable.
It is the reason America became a beacon of hope.
It is the reason tyranny has been held at bay.
It is the reason free markets flourished.
It is the reason individual liberty became the American birthright.
And it is the reason we must defend it now.
Because if the Constitution ever truly becomes “irrelevant,” it will not be because it failed us.
It will be because we failed it.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
