If you feel our country is in uncharted waters, you are not alone. Our most sacred institution – the right and ability of each citizen to have a fair voice in determining their own destiny – is in peril. Yet, with the unique challenges of this time comes a unique opportunity to address the shortcomings of our governmental institutions in a deep and lasting way.
We live in a house whose cornerstone was laid in 1783, with the ratification of the United States Constitution. It is the second oldest continuous system of government in the entire world1, a testament to its greatness. Yet, even the best house must eventually be rebuilt, when the accumulation of repairs and additions can no longer keep up with the toll of time, when the house cannot withstand the weather of the twenty-first century as it did the eighteenth.
At its inception, the United States brought something new into human history: The promise that a system of government could safeguard and nurture the well-being and growth of every soul in its care – “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
We stand now at a point of choice, a moment unique to our history as a nation. Democracy is wavering, people have little confidence that our government can represent our needs. There is a stong tendency in such uncertain times to reach toward authoritarian rule, to think we cannot govern ourselves as our Founders intended, to surrender our responsibility as individual citizens to those who claim to have all the answers. But if this is a moment of unique threat to democracy, it is a moment of unique opportunity as well. Into the vacuum of our loss of confidence in our institutions of government, let us bring a new and deeper respect for the principles upon which the United States was founded, and a commitment to develop new institutions that can safeguard and uphold these principles in today’s world.
Let us pick up our tools – our intelligence, our creativity, our devotion to the highest ideals of human souls uniting in nationhood – and set to the task of building freedom’s new home: With gratitude and respect for what has been, and with fresh eyes to what will serve us moving into the future. We do not seek to abandon the principles embodied in our current Constitution – quite the opposite, we seek to embrace and strengthen them, to shelter them in a new home designed for the challenges of our time.
What follows is a blueprint for the America that is to be. It is a work in progress. You are invited to read, to offer your views and suggestions, to help create America’s new home. You are invited to be a founder of the new democracy.
Welcome to the Covenant for a New America.