A Republic, If We Can Keep It
When I first made the case for an Article V Convention of States, only 19 states had passed resolutions calling for a convention. That has since changed.
On January 22, Kansas’s state legislature passed its resolution calling for an Article V Convention of States for the purpose of addressing and proposing amendments on term limits, a balanced budget, and limiting the scope of federal authority. This passage makes Kansas state number 20. The country is now only 14 states away from a convention being called.
The resolution passed in the Kansas House of Representatives in a landslide vote of 80 to 42, which the Kansas Senate had already passed in February 2025. This passage wasn’t exactly an easy one, especially after some argued that the state’s supermajority requirement on this resolution was needed for its passage. Fortunately, the United States District Court of the District of Kansas ruled that requirement as unconstitutional under Kansas’ constitution.
The news itself is great, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect considering the nation is only a few months away from celebrating its 250th birthday. In moments like this, I feel a deep sense of reflection as to why this moment is critical for the future of America.
Let’s begin by imagining being in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, in the summer of 1787. Over the course of four long months, a room of 55 delegates from across the nation faced the difficult task of creating a new framework for a new government, in the wake of the failure of the Articles of Confederation. They engage in intense debates over the structure of this new government, its representation, and the controversial issue of slavery. They also deal with the intense summer heat. Getting things done isn’t going to be easy.
The framers sought to break the historical cycle of violent usurpations and make a new nation governed by a free, moral, and just people.
The framers understood that if this new republic were to endure, they needed to compromise, meaning that some issues would have to wait until the time came to address them. To address those issues later meant having the means of amending the Constitution. Fortunately, George Mason, near the end of the convention, had the wisdom to say that rather than constricting the amendment process to being exclusively done by the federal government, especially if it would one day become tyrannical, a second method allowing the states and their people to be able to propose critical amendments was necessary to ensure the nation’s stability and freedoms. Mason’s move was unanimously accepted by the framers on Sept. 15, 1787, as James Madison would record in his notes during the convention.
This move by the framers revealed not only their political genius but their embrace of a revolutionary new idea, the concept of Amendability. It was the Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke, in his work Reflections on the Revolution in France, who had said, “A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.” Change is needed, but it is by gradual change and its essential elements, including the degree of prudence and proper institutional framework, that change offers the assurance of any nation’s survival. The framers understood this quite well and ensured such a means for Burkean change. The fact that Article V provides two separate methods of proposing amendments to the Constitution, plus a high threshold for initiating as well as ratifying, shows that moderate change wasn’t optional for the nation but essential.
Unfortunately, today’s America has drifted away from the incremental change of the framers, with many elements embracing a more radical and violent approach. Scenes of violence transpiring across the nation, whether clashes in Minnesota, the attempted assassination of Trump, or the murder of Charlie Kirk, show just how far our nation has strayed from the ideas of 1787. The use of violence by the Left as a means of creating change has only given rise to further justification for violence by some on both sides. We’ve reached the point where some pundits have expressed deep concern as to the real possibility of the nation heading toward civil war.
The framers understood too well the dangers of violent change. They knew from the history of ancient Greece and Rome that political change often came at the tip of the sword. They knew that the City of Athens fell to violence arising from the instability of its democratic regime. They knew that the Roman Republic, despite its efforts to reform, fell prey to political factions vying for power through force, leading to endless rebellions and the civil wars that gave way to the rise of the Caesars. And they understood this from English history, with the First Baron War following King John’s rejection of the Magna Carta, and the English Civil War that moved Great Britain from monarchical rule to the dictatorial rule of Oliver Cromwell.
Though the framers understood these usurpations, we should remain hopeful about today’s situation. We should remember Benjamin Franklin’s words in 1787, following the end of the Philadelphia Convention. When asked by Mrs. Eliza Powell, “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “A republic if you can keep it.”
Of course, America’s current problems go well beyond sporadic uses of violence. Years of federal overreach have chipped away at the foundations of our freedoms and constitutional order. The federal government’s gross mismanagement of America’s pocketbook has generated a national debt exceeding $38.5 trillion, which is now projected to soon reach $40 trillion.
We might feel that our representatives today don’t have the same intellectual caliber as the framers. And yet, the framers gave us everything we need, including their knowledge preserved in their writings, the blueprint of our constitutional order found within the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the inherited wisdom of Western civilization at our disposal.
We aren’t perfect people, nor will we ever be. James Madison pointed that out eloquently in Federalist 51: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Yet the framers, imperfect themselves, managed to launch one of the greatest experiments in human history. Despite our imperfections, we still have the ability to reason enough to strive toward that more perfect union envisioned in the preamble of our Constitution.
This is why a Convention of States is desperately needed. The framers sought to break the historical cycle of violent usurpations and make a new nation governed by a free, moral, and just people who could prosper and flourish. If change was needed to ensure the survival of the republic and the liberties they sought to secure, then the people and the states could be its guardians. Our broken government won’t solve its own broken self. Structural changes — such as a balanced budget, term limits, and limiting the scope of federal authority — are needed to safeguard our freedoms, and constitutional order can only be done if We the People can muster the courage to propose and ratify such changes.
An Article V Convention of States is a peaceful solution that will offer the chance to fulfill the vision of the framers and finally fix our broken government. And it will be the courage and prudence of the American people that determine whether we can keep the republic.
READ MORE from Hunter Oswald:
The Lee Proposal: Restoring Stewardship in America