Despite there only being one official change of governing documents in the history of the United States, the way the Constitution has been understood over the years has been radically altered.…The good news is that by maintaining the appearance of continuity, the United States has lasted 250 years. The bad news is that most people do not realize how much America has changed, or how these Revolutions have come into being.

Anniversaries are more than a celebration; they are a time of reflection.

The historian John Glubb famously claimed that the average lifespan of an empire is about 250 years, an ominous number as America celebrates its own 250^th anniversary.^[1] As our beloved nation reaches this important milestone there are plenty of achievements and traditions to honor, but there are also numerous challenges that we face as a people. Congress seems paralyzed, unable to address the many critical issues that loom on the horizon. Our judiciary branch has gone rogue, battling the president at every turn. The executive is hindered severely by a deep state which seems dead set to deny necessary change. Could it be that our system of government has run its course, or is there a solution to this intransigence that is in keeping with the traditions of the nation?

The truth is that the American government has changed radically over the years while maintain the illusion of continuity, a flexibility installed into the Constitution by the founders themselves. This truth, while uncomfortable for some, may show us a way to maintain our nation while addressing the critical issues that threaten to consume us. In what follows, I want to show how the United States has not had only one set of guiding principles, but five.

One Nation Under Five Republics

Americans are taught to think of our nation as one continuous government, but upon careful examination we will notice several distinct periods in the life of the republic. As the political theorist Curtis Yarvin has suggested, the French number their republics to better understand when and how these changes took place, and it is helpful for us to do the same with the United States.^[2] The nation has held a single identity, but there have been revolutions inside the form, maintaining the same basic structure externally but radically altering how the government actually functions. Exploring these changes is key to understanding how we arrived at our current situation.

1. The Articles of Confederation (1781–1789)

The Constitution was not the first governing document of the United States; that distinction belongs to the Articles of Confederation. The Articles created a weak central government on purpose with the intent of leaving the states more like independent nations who cooperated on a regular basis than a unified country. Several of the Founding Fathers were frustrated by the limitations of this government and envisioned America as a player on the world stage with a large mercantile empire. Those Founders replaced the Articles with the Constitution, ratifying the new governing document without technically dissolving the old one.

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