Watch All Shows Victor Davis Hanson Tony Kinnett Daily Signal Signal Sitdown

Watch All Shows Victor Davis Hanson Tony Kinnett Daily Signal Signal Sitdown

Home – Founding Fathers & American History – Victor Davis Hanson: Why the American Republic Survived for 250 Years

Victor Davis Hanson: Why the American Republic Survived for 250 Years

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Sami Winc: So Victor, I guess the first question maybe we could discuss is how have we made it in 250 years, this republic, a rare thing historically that a republic could go for so long?  

Victor Davis Hanson: Well, the secondary reasons are—we had not the primary, but I’ll get over very quickly review the secondary. We had a huge North American continent. 

It was richly endowed with natural resources, farmland, etc. We didn’t fragment into European warring states, but we were the size of Europe, but we were one complete nation thanks to people like James K. Polk and [Thomas] Jefferson and other people who saw that we needed to have the whole continent or end up like Europe. 

Number two, we had two oceans, so we were protected from what was going on in Asia and Europe. But that is secondary to the Constitution. So we took the Spartan, Cretan and then Roman idea of mixed constitution—a legislative, executive and judicial branch. But unlike some of the mixed constitutions, we put a number of checks and balances in. 

So the whole point of it was to slow down radical changes through the president’s power to veto legislation, the Congress’s power to impeach him, the president’s power to pick judicial appointments, the Congress not to approve them, and the judiciary to strike down laws as unconstitutional. And they can impeach—the legislative body can impeach judges. The president cannot appoint people he thinks would be bad judges. There’s—it’s all intricate checks and balances. 

Supreme Court Deals Massive Blow to the Deep State, Reversing 90-Year Precedent in Humphrey’s Executor

‘UNEVEN PLAYING FIELD’: Daughters of the American Revolution Leaders ‘Tilted’ Transgender Vote, Member Says

Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship in Blow to Trump Immigration Enforcement

Number two is we were the only country to really have a Bill of Rights, so there were certain issues in other countries that have never been up for—I mean, they’re nuances, and everybody reinterprets them, but they’re not up for discussion as far as eliminating them.  

The Bill of Rights—the ability not to have your house searched and seized, the right to bear arms, the right not to have to testify against yourself, the right of habeas corpus—that’s all documented. 

And then with the amendment system, we have further rights. The other things are more intangible, but that revolution was never a French Revolution.  

Sami Winc: One........

© The Daily Signal