In September, the AEI Press will publish Democracy and the Constitution: Essays by Walter Berns. The following is an excerpt from Berns’s chapter (first published in 2002) on the character and durability of the American Constitution.

Certainly, [the U.S. Constitution] was a new kind of constitution. It was based on a new principle, derived from the new idea of democracy which, in turn, was the product of the new political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and, especially, John Locke (“America’s philosopher,” as he came to be called). It was Locke who (greatly to simplify) demonstrated that all men are created equal insofar as they are equally endowed with certain unalienable rights. . . . This means that the people are the source of legitimate government. The name for this is popular sovereignty, and popular sovereignty is the salient feature of modern constitutionalism.

It is not, however, the only feature. Since all men are created free and equal, it follows that no man may govern another without his consent. This consent is originally given in a constitution, and, since the constitution states the terms under which men agree to be governed, the constitution has to be written. Men insist on this, and not only Americans. Thus, every country in the world—except Britain, New Zealand, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Libya—now has a written constitution. Now, the modern world is, as Alexis de Tocqueville was the first to point out, irreversibly democratic; this, he said, is a “providential fact.” What this means is that limited or constitutional government can no longer (if it ever could) be achieved by mixing democracy with oligarchy or aristocracy, and it goes without saying that the day is long past when someone can claim to rule by the grace of God. Limited or constitutional government is possible in this democratic world only if the people are willing to impose limits on themselves. The American people did just this in 1788 when they ratified the Constitution.

Its Framers made no effort to conceal the fact that they intended to put limits on democratic majorities; they said as much. The Constitution, they said, would exclude the people “in their collective capacity” from any share in the government. They took pride in the fact that their government was not a democracy, but a republic that put some distance between the people and the levers of power. The Constitution did this by providing

• a president chosen not by the people but by electors who, having made their choice, would immediately disband;

• a Senate chosen not by the people but by the various state legislatures, each state, regardless of the size of its population, being entitled to choose two;

• a House of Representatives chosen not by a majority of the whole people but by majorities within each of the districts into which each state would be divided;

• and, finally, a Supreme Court, with the power to veto popular legislation and whose members would, in effect, serve for life.

Generally, the Constitution provides a system of majority government, but the governing majority is assembled not from among the people directly but from among the representatives of the people. Because they represent different interests, and because the legislative branch is separated from the executive, and because the legislative is itself divided into House and Senate, assembling this majority is no simple matter. It was not supposed to be.

The people were left in no doubt about the essential features of this Constitution. Every aspect of it was subjected to intense scrutiny during the ratification debates, which were carried on in town meetings, state conventions, and the popular press. Among the opponents were famous men, leading figures in the Revolution—Patrick Henry, for example. He led the opposition in Virginia. . . . Yet Virginia voted in favor of ratification, as did every other state. Under the circumstances, this was truly remarkable.

Equally remarkable is the fact that the Constitution has endured for more than two hundred years. Of course, it has been amended, and, aside from the original ten comprising the Bill of Rights, almost every one of the amendments has been democratic in character—putting an end to slavery, for example, expanding the voting franchise, providing for the popular election of senators, and permitting the Congress to levy a progressive tax on incomes. But this does not, I think, fully explain the abiding popularity of the Constitution.

It has survived so long not because it is written in stone (so to speak) but because the people have become accustomed to it. More than that, they have come to esteem it and the men who framed it. Madison hoped it would somehow acquire “that veneration which time bestows on everything”; and so it has. Burke would appreciate this. He spoke of the British constitution as a “prescriptive constitution . . . whose sole authority is, that it has existed time out of mind.” Something like this might also be said of the American.