ABSTRACT
For those who really value the rule of the people, as well as the special constitutional heritage of American federal republicanism, the task of the day is not to spread democracy about the world while we congratulate ourselves on our success. The task is to restore the federal republic at home. In order to carry out this task we will need the spirit of liberty that animated generations of our forefathers–not obeisance to their forms, but an imitation of their spirit. For forms may survive when the soul is fled from them. To restore the federal republic, we will have to begin to level up rather than level down, to substitute liberty for equality as our chief goal. Ideological equality is the enemy of republican citizenship. The restoration of the federal republic will not in itself solve all our problems because the ends of human life do not rest in government and because modern society is in deep spiritual crisis.
