Vital Lessons

By Louise Dubé, Shawn Healy, and Julie Silverbrook

Mount Vernon tells not only the story of a man and a place in early American history, but also of the people and the social fabric that animated the founding of the nation. Today’s U.S. constitutional democracy flows from these.

In his first inaugural address, President George Washington said, “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

At its core, representative democracy is a set of legal structures and institutions—as Washington made clear in his Farewell Address in 1796—but it can only be sustained with a civil society that seeks the ideals the structures were designed to attain.

For example, the balance of power reflected in the three branches of government is central because it assumes that disagreement is the organizing principle behind self-government. It bakes in the understanding that Americans—as a people—will need to overcome inevitable disagreements and need structures to move them toward resolution.

Here and abroad, the bonds of civic friendship— the willingness and ability to compromise and solve common problems—have frayed. In many places, they have ruptured.

But what is frayed can be mended. The actions of ordinary people, as well as leaders, can change the path of a nation—as they did in 1776 and 1787, and many times since. The civil society reboot needed to mend a torn civic fabric starts with teaching young people about the U.S. Constitution, the nation’s institutions, and the necessary norms to sustain and strengthen a healthy democracy. The United States will not sustain its constitutional democracy without reinvigorating civic education. As the country nears the 250th anniversary of its founding, now is the time to make civic education a priority.