From Federal Republic to Unitary Empire: Post-Civil War Transformation and the Myth of Constitutional Continuity

Abstract

This thesis examines the transformation of the United States from a federated republic into a de facto centralized empire in the aftermath of the Civil War, and the consequent epistemological dissonance between America’s constitutional mythology and its evolved governance. It argues that key turning points – notably the Reconstruction Amendments, the Seventeenth Amendment, and the rise of the administrative state – severed the genealogical and ontological continuity of the original constitutional order. The nation’s founding liberal myths (federalism, consent of the governed, the social contract, and popular sovereignty) continue to be venerated in civil discourse and political ritual, even as actual power has become concentrated in a centralized managerial state that permits only a narrow Overton window of policy debate. This dissonance between perception and reality is explored through historical, legal, philosophical, and theological lenses. In particular, Orthodox Christian metaphysical categories of truth, legitimacy, and order are employed to illuminate how a rupture in foundational truth leads to confusion and incoherence in political life. The thesis concludes that the maintenance of America’s founding narrative, despite its divergence from political reality, creates confusion among both the electorate and officials – a confusion actively sustained by institutional and ideological forces to preserve the current centralized order. Citations to primary and secondary sources in American history, law, and theology support this analysis.

Introduction

The United States was founded on principles of limited government, federalism, and the consent of the governed – ideals enshrined in founding documents and national mythology. According to this American political theology, the U.S. Constitution formed a social contract among sovereign people and states, creating a federal republic based on divided sovereignty and checks and balances. In theory, power was to be distributed between the federal center and the semi-sovereign states, and government derived its legitimacy from the voluntary consent of the governed. Over time, however, the structure of American governance has markedly changed. In the century and a half since the Civil War, the United States has undergone a de facto transformation into an increasingly unitary or centralized state – even an “empire” in the sense of consolidated authority – that no longer closely resembles the decentralized republic of the Founders. Yet the legal-constitutional mythology of the United States has persisted with almost religious fervor: politicians and citizens alike continue to invoke the Founders’ ideals of federalism, social contract, and popular sovereignty as if unchanged.

This dichotomy between myth and reality has produced what may be termed an epistemological dissonance in American political consciousness. The forms and vocabulary of the old constitutional order remain in use, while the underlying structure and power relations have fundamentally altered. The result is a kind of cognitive dissonance – a confusion or incoherence in understanding the nature of American government. The federal system is celebrated in theory even as it has eroded in practice; the “consent of the governed” is ritually affirmed even as genuine consent becomes abstract or assumed; the “sovereignty of the people” is proclaimed even as managerial elites and bureaucratic agencies wield power largely insulated from popular control. This thesis explores how this dissonance came to be, focusing on critical historical and legal milestones that reshaped the Union after the Civil War. It also examines how Enlightenment liberal myths are maintained through narrative and what purpose that serves. Finally, it brings in perspectives from Orthodox Christian thought – on truth, legitimacy, and order – to illuminate the metaphysical dimensions of this American paradox.

The analysis is structured in thematic chapters. Chapter 1 reviews the founding constitutional order and its guiding myths. Chapter 2 analyzes the Civil War and Reconstruction era as a decisive rupture, highlighting how the Union’s preservation by force and the Reconstruction Amendments altered the balance of power and basis of legitimacy. Chapter 3 discusses the Progressive Era’s changes, especially the Seventeenth Amendment, as further severing the original federal design. Chapter 4 examines the rise of the administrative state in the 20th century as consolidating a centralized, bureaucratic form of governance far removed from the Constitution’s 18th-century framework. Chapter 5 investigates how post-Enlightenment liberal myths – such as the social contract and popular sovereignty – continue to be promoted as a kind of civil religion, sustaining an idealized narrative of American governance within a constrained spectrum of acceptable discourse (the Overton window). Throughout, the thesis integrates theological and philosophical reflections, particularly from an Orthodox Christian perspective, on issues of rupture, legitimacy, and truth. By tracing these developments, the thesis sheds light on how the American political order’s outward form was preserved even as its substance transformed – a phenomenon that one observer aptly termed a “revolution within the form”. The conclusion reflects on the consequences of this epistemological incoherence for American political life and what it portends for the legitimacy and health of the polity.

Chapter 1: Foundational Mythos – Federalism, Consent, and the Social Contract

In the late 18th century, the United States was established as a constitutional federation of states, born of a revolution against imperial centralism. The Founders crafted a system in which power was deliberately divided between a national government and the individual states, each sovereign in its own sphere. This arrangement was rooted in social contract theory and the Enlightenment idea that governments derive their just authority from the consent of the governed. The Declaration of Independence famously proclaimed that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. The Constitution of 1787 then created a “federal republic,” attempting to balance dual sovereignty: the federal government was granted enumerated powers chiefly over national concerns, while the states retained broad autonomy over local matters. In this original design, the people were sovereign in a twofold sense – as citizens of the nation and of their respective states – and their consent was to be channeled through multiple levels of representation and governance.

Federalism was thus a cornerstone of the American legal order. The states were not mere administrative provinces but foundational partners in the Union. They participated directly in federal governance via the Senate (whose members were originally chosen by state legislatures) and had reserved powers under the Tenth Amendment. This division of authority was believed to be an essential safeguard of liberty. James Madison in Federalist No. 51 praised the compound republic for providing a “double security” to the rights of the people, since power checking power in a federal system would prevent overreach by either level of government. Similarly, Alexander Hamilton argued that having the states elect Senators would tether the national government to state interests and prevent federal encroachment. The Founders’ contemporaries often contrasted their new federated republic with the unitary British Empire they had escaped; they consciously rejected a centralized sovereignty in favor of a distributed one.

Accompanying federalism was the principle of popular consent anchored in a quasi-mythical social contract. Thinkers like John Locke had asserted that political authority arises from an implicit contract among the governed, who agree to delegate some sovereignty in exchange for protection of their natural rights. The American Founders adopted this language, asserting that the Constitution was an agreement “ordained and established” by “We the People.” In practice, of course, the actual consent at the founding was given by a limited electorate and by state ratifying conventions, but the ideology of consent quickly became part of American civic creed. This liberal theory imparted a mythology of legitimacy: that the U.S. government uniquely rested on voluntary agreement and reflected the sovereign will of a free people, unlike the old-world monarchies legitimated by divine right or force.

Crucially, early American political culture also drew from post-Enlightenment liberal myths about human nature and governance. One such mythos was that of continuous popular sovereignty – the idea that “the people” eternally retain ultimate authority and can alter their government if it betrays their trust. Thomas Jefferson expressed this in the Declaration’s assertion that when a government becomes destructive of rights, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”. In theory, this provided an eternal check on tyranny: the people’s sovereign will, grounded in reason and natural law, would ensure government by consent. The “consent of the governed” thus became a kind of sacred formula in American discourse, repeated in school textbooks, political speeches, and court decisions. It suggested an almost theological faith that the American regime is continually legitimated by the assent of its citizens – a faith buttressed by regular elections and the veneration of founding documents.

American civic ideology also often invoked Providence and moral mission, forming what scholars have termed an American civil religion. Sociologist Robert Bellah observed that Americans developed an “elaborate and well-instituted civil religion” that sacralized the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and the idea of America as a chosen nation under God. In this civil religion, concepts like liberty and equality became articles of faith, and the Constitution itself assumed an aura of infallibility in the popular imagination. The nation’s legal mythology promised both liberty and order: liberty through division and limitation of powers, order through a common adherence to a supreme law. The epistemological premise was that the American system, as originally conceived, was both just and durable – a nearly perfect balance that would persist so long as citizens remained true to its principles.

However, embedded even in the early republic were ambiguities and tensions. The Constitution’s terse language left room for conflicting interpretations of federal vs. state authority. And despite lofty invocations of consent and equality, large portions of the population (enslaved African Americans, Native Americans, women, propertyless males) were initially outside the circle of political participation. Dissenting voices, such as the Anti-Federalists, warned that the new Constitution centralized too much power and would subvert true federalism. Conversely, nationalists argued that the Articles of Confederation had failed precisely because they lacked an effective central authority. Thus, the precise nature of the American Union – whether it was a compact of sovereign states or an indissoluble nation of one people – remained somewhat indeterminate. This ambiguity would prove fateful in the 19th century, when sectional crises put competing constitutional mythologies to the ultimate test.

By the mid-19th century, Americans in different regions held starkly different conceptions of the Union’s nature. Southerners increasingly embraced a states’-rights interpretation: the Union as a voluntary federation from which states retained a right to secede, based on the continuing sovereignty of the people of each state. Northerners (especially in the Republican Party) came to emphasize the Union as paramount and perpetual, viewing secession as an illegal rebellion. Both sides cloaked themselves in the language of America’s founding myths – liberty, consent, self-government – yet arrived at incompatible conclusions. This illustrates how a shared mythology can fracture into “epistemological dissensus” when applied to concrete power questions. As the next chapter explores, the Civil War resolved this fundamental ambiguity by force, initiating a decisive shift in the ontology of American governance even as the old rhetoric endured.

Chapter 2: Civil War and Reconstruction – Rupture of the Old Order

The Civil War (1861–1865) and the Reconstruction era that followed represent a watershed in American constitutional history. These events marked the violent rupture of the original federal compact and the beginning of a re-founded political order grounded in coercion and centralization rather than unanimous consent. The Civil War was fundamentally a contest over sovereignty: whether ultimate authority lay with the states (each free to withdraw from the Union) or with an indivisible Union of the American people. The Union’s victory answered this question in favor of national supremacy, but at the cost of the very principle of consent that had legitimated the Union’s formation.

In 1860–61, eleven Southern states, asserting the doctrine of state sovereignty and the right of secession, formally repealed their ratifications of the Constitution and formed the Confederate States of America. They claimed to act in the spirit of 1776 – dissolving a political bond that they judged destructive to their rights (particularly the perceived right to hold slaves as property). President Abraham Lincoln, however, refused to acknowledge secession as anything but illegal insurrection. In his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln argued that the Union was “perpetual” and that no state could unilaterally leave: “The Union is much older than the Constitution,” he said, and the Articles of Confederation had explicitly declared it perpetual . He maintained that the American people as a whole, not the states individually, were sovereign with respect to the Union. Therefore, in Lincoln’s view, secession lacked any constitutional legitimacy and had to be suppressed to preserve republican government.

The Union’s position was soon vindicated on the battlefield. By force of arms, the idea of secession was extinguished. In Texas v. White (1869), the U.S. Supreme Court codified this new reality in constitutional doctrine: it declared that the Union is “indestructible” and that when Texas joined the Union, “she entered into an indissoluble relation.” The Court asserted that the union between Texas and the other states was “as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States,” and thus “there was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States” . In other words, after 1865 a state could no longer claim a legal right to withdraw its consent to federal authority – any attempt to do so was “absolutely null” and void . The irony is striking: a Union founded on the principle that governments derive legitimacy from consent had denied, by judicial fiat and military force, any lawful means of withdrawing consent. The ontology of the Union had changed from a voluntary compact to what was, in effect, a commanded allegiance.

The Reconstruction period (1865–1877) that followed further transformed the constitutional landscape through coercive measures and amendments that significantly increased federal power vis-à-vis the states. Congress refused to recognize the governments of the former Confederate states (except Tennessee) until certain conditions were met. Through the Reconstruction Acts, the South was placed under military governance; Southern state constitutions were invalidated; and new elections were held under universal male suffrage including freed slaves. As a condition for readmission to Congress, each ex-Confederate state was required to ratify new constitutional amendments – the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments – which fundamentally altered the federal-state relationship.

The Reconstruction Amendments (1865–1870) did achieve epochal expansions of rights: the Thirteenth abolished slavery, the Fourteenth redefined citizenship and guaranteed due process and equal protection, and the Fifteenth sought to protect voting rights regardless of race. However, these amendments also severely curtailed the autonomy of states and introduced a new national enforcement authority over individual rights. The Thirteenth Amendment, in ending slavery “within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction,” not only liberated millions of people but also removed a major subject (the legal status of slavery) from state jurisdiction entirely. It “dealt a severe setback to the autonomy of states and substantially enlarged the authority of the central government,” as one historian notes. The Southern states were in effect compelled by the victorious North to accept the abolition of slavery – a policy Lincoln himself had earlier noted he had “no lawful right” to impose where it already existed. The shift from voluntary state action (as had been envisioned for peacetime emancipation) to federally mandated abolition signaled a new reality: certain core policies would now be dictated from the center, even against unanimous opposition within a state.

The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) went further, striking at the heart of the old federal balance. It declared, inter alia, that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens of the United States (establishing a national citizenship that states could not deny) and that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States… nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In doing so, the amendment transferred authority over civil rights and equal legal protection from the states to the federal domain – or at least created a shared domain. Exactly how far this transfer went was initially ambiguous. The key phrases “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” and “equal protection of the laws” did not spell out whether the federal government would henceforth dictate the content of civil rights or merely prevent egregious discrimination by states. Nevertheless, the very existence of these constraints meant the federal Constitution now directly regulated a state’s treatment of its own citizens in broad terms. This was a radical departure from the Founders’ Constitution, where aside from a few specific limits (like not impeding contracts or ex post facto laws), states largely defined the rights of their citizens.

It is important to note that the legitimacy of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification was hotly contested at the time. The amendment was proposed by a Congress that pointedly excluded representatives from most Southern states (those states had not yet been re-admitted to the Union). When several Northern states (and all Southern states that had initially rejoined) rejected the amendment in 1866, Congress responded by refusing to seat Southern legislators and passed the Reconstruction Acts that imposed military rule. Under military pressure, new state legislatures in the South ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, providing the necessary tally for adoption. Two Northern states (Ohio and New Jersey) attempted to rescind their ratifications, but Congress disregarded these withdrawals. Thus, from a procedural standpoint, the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption was achieved under duress: the defeated states were forced to ratify the amendment in order to regain representation in Congress. Southern legal scholars and political leaders of the time decried this as illegitimate – an amendment “not adopted in peace, but imposed by the sword,” as one might say. Indeed, a commentator notes that Southerners “argued that the amendment was invalid because the beaten southern states, then ruled by federal military commissions, were forced to ratify the amendment in order to regain their full legal status”. While all ex-Confederate states later acquiesced and ratified the Fourteenth in subsequent decades (so its legal force is now unquestioned), the episode underscores the extent to which the postwar constitutional order was founded on coercion rather than universal consent.

The Reconstruction era also witnessed federal authorities directly intervening in state governance in unprecedented ways. Under the Reconstruction Acts, U.S. Army generals supervised voter registration and the formation of new state governments in the South. This was a striking inversion of the previous norm where state militias and governments handled their own affairs. The Civil War itself had already expanded federal reach – e.g. suspension of habeas corpus, national conscription, and the Emancipation Proclamation’s assertion of a wartime power to liberate slaves. But Reconstruction peacetime policies went further in peacetime: they effectively treated the Southern states as conquered provinces to be reorganized. Radical Republicans like Thaddeus Stevens openly argued that Southern states had “committed suicide” as states and should be readmitted only as new creations under terms set by Congress. This approach treated the Union not as a voluntary compact among equal members, but as a sovereign conquering power. It is in this period that one can locate the genesis of the United States as a more unitary state in practice.

The immediate consequences of Reconstruction for federalism were profound. The old idea that each state could largely chart its own course (subject to the Constitution’s few restrictions) was supplanted by the idea that the federal government had not just the right but the duty to remake state laws and institutions that were deemed undemocratic or unjust (in that era, specifically to protect the rights of freedmen). The Fourteenth Amendment’s Enforcement Clause (Section 5) gave Congress power to pass legislation to enforce its provisions, leading to early civil rights acts. Although the Supreme Court in the late 19th century initially interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment narrowly (e.g. the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873 gutted the “privileges or immunities” clause), the long-term trend was set: the federal judiciary and legislature had a constitutional tool to police state laws on grounds of fundamental rights.

By severing the original allocation of power, Reconstruction severed also a certain genealogical legitimacy. The pre-war constitutional order could trace its legitimacy through an unbroken line to the Founding – amendments had been added, but always with the states’ broad and voluntary participation. After the Civil War, one can argue the original social contract was broken and refashioned. Some contemporary observers recognized this. In 1866, as Congress pushed through its plans over President Andrew Johnson’s vetoes, Johnson himself accused the Radical Republicans of trying to “break down the Constitution” by centralizing unchecked power in Congress and disregarding the rights of states and individuals. Conversely, Radical leaders like Rep. Stevens almost reveled in the revolutionary character of their project. The result was a deep and lasting epistemological divide in how Americans viewed their government: ex-Confederates and their sympathizers saw Reconstruction as an illegitimate imposition – a revolution against 1787, while the victorious North came to see it as a necessary re-founding that completed and even fulfilled the promise of 1776 (a “new birth of freedom,” in Lincoln’s words).

Notably, even as these structural changes took place, American political rhetoric continued to invoke the old ideals. The Reconstruction Amendments were justified by their proponents as actually upholding true republicanism and consent, rather than destroying it. Radical Republican Charles Sumner argued that nationalizing civil rights was required to establish a genuine consent of the governed in the South (by protecting Black citizens’ rights). President Ulysses S. Grant, in urging the Fifteenth Amendment (Black suffrage), framed it as the only way to ensure that “the consent of the governed” really meant the consent of all the governed, not just a portion. In this manner, the narrative of America as a consensual, federated republic was repurposed to support what in effect was a significant increase in central authority. This narrative strategy has persisted: even when expanding federal power, American leaders often claim they are perfecting the founders’ ideals rather than repudiating them. This phenomenon – using the language of liberty and social contract to legitimize moves toward centralization – contributes to the epistemological dissonance at the heart of this thesis. It allows continuity in myth even amidst rupture in reality.

By the end of Reconstruction in 1877, the United States had undeniably changed. Secession was discredited and made impossible; slavery was abolished; and on paper, at least, the federal Constitution now guaranteed a baseline of rights nationwide. Yet the federal occupation of the South ended as part of a political compromise in 1877, and in the ensuing decades the states (particularly in the South) would reassert local control in the form of segregation and disenfranchisement, relatively unimpeded by Washington until the mid-20th century. Thus, the centralizing revolution of the 1860s was in some respects stalled or partially reversed in the late 19th century. The Supreme Court in this era often handed down decisions restoring some state authority and limiting federal reach (e.g. narrowing the Fourteenth Amendment’s scope in civil rights cases). Some historians argue that the true consolidation of national power awaited the Second Reconstruction of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, when the federal government finally broke the back of Jim Crow and fully imposed the Bill of Rights on the states. There is merit to that view: it was indeed in the 20th century that the federal government grew into the massive administrative state we know today, and that national standards came to penetrate deeply into areas once considered local matters.

Nevertheless, the Civil War and Reconstruction undeniably severed the antebellum constitutional continuity. The idea that the Union rested on the continuous consent of sovereign states was lost; the nature of the Union became that of a permanent national entity. As one scholar observed, 1861 marked the moment when “states’ rights” ideology was crushed and the federal government became “by far the most consequential player in American government”. In the colorful phrasing of commentator Samuel T. Francis, the post-Civil War era initiated the long process by which “a decentralized republic of self-governing citizens” would be altered into “a centralized, bureaucratic leviathan”. The form of the Constitution remained (amended, but recognizable), yet the spirit or practical operation changed in a way that many contemporaries could scarcely admit openly. Some did: in 1867, one critic blasted the Republican Congress for the “blatantly illegal passage of the 14th Amendment,” calling it the work of a party that had become “the major enemy of constitutional government”. Such extreme views, however, were marginalized. The official narrative remained that the Constitution had been preserved and perfected – not abolished – by the outcomes of the Civil War. This narrative gloss, this insistence on continuity amidst revolution, set the stage for future developments. Americans could thus proceed into the Gilded Age and Progressive Era still mouthing the shibboleths of federalism and consent, even as the genealogical legitimacy of the government (its descent from a truly consensual social contract) became increasingly tenuous.

Chapter 3: Progressive-Era Centralization – The Seventeenth Amendment and the End of State Sovereignty

By the early 20th century, the United States underwent further structural changes that cemented the shift toward a unitary national polity. The Progressive Era (circa 1890s–1910s) was characterized by a drive to reform and modernize American government and society – often by expanding the role of centralized authority in the name of efficiency, democracy, and curbing corruption. One of the most significant constitutional changes of this era was the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, which provided for the direct popular election of U.S. Senators. This amendment is a critical milestone in the narrative of America’s transformation, as it fundamentally altered the federal structure designed by the Framers. It effectively severed the last institutional link between state governments and federal lawmaking, thereby undermining the remaining influence of states as states in the national political process.

Under the original Constitution (Article I, Section 3), Senators were chosen by state legislatures. This design was a deliberate element of the federal system: the Senate was intended to represent the state governments and to protect their interests at the national level. Alexander Hamilton had predicted that Senators, being appointed by state legislatures, would remain “dependant” on state governments and inclined to guard state prerogatives. George Mason and other Framers considered this mode of election a “bulwark against federal overreach”, meaning it would prevent the central government from encroaching on state authority, since any such encroachments could be resisted by state-aligned Senators. In Federalist No. 62, often attributed to Madison (though referenced by George Mason in debates), it was argued that this arrangement would produce a Senate more deliberative and immune to sudden passions, and simultaneously ensure a check on the “encroachment” of the federal government into state jurisdiction. In effect, the Senate was a structural embodiment of the social contract between states and Union – a guarantor that the states had a co-equal voice in federal policy.

The Seventeenth Amendment broke this arrangement. It changed the Constitution to require that Senators be elected by the people of each state directly, in the same manner as House representatives. While this may seem a straightforward democratization, it was, as critics note, also a significant centralizing reform. By removing state legislatures from the equation, the amendment stripped state governments of their formal say in federal legislative personnel. In the long term, this meant that Senators no longer primarily saw themselves as emissaries of their state’s government, but rather as national politicians who campaigned to and answered to a broad electorate. The immediate consequence was to align Senators’ interests more with national party platforms and interest groups, rather than the institutional interests of their state. A modern legal scholar succinctly observed: “The 17th Amendment completely changed the balance of power in our federal system.” It “was designed to enhance the authority of the central government and expand the size and power of a federal bureaucracy,” all while diminishing the power of state governments .

Caption: A late-19th-century political cartoon (“Puck”, 1890) satirizing how wealthy figures could effectively purchase Senate seats by bribing state legislatures. Progressive reformers seized on such corruption scandals to advocate for direct election of Senators (Public Domain).

The direct election of Senators was championed as a reform to address corruption and gridlock in state legislatures. Indeed, in the decades before 1913, several incidents had tarnished the system: there were cases where Senate seats were allegedly “bought” by moneyed interests influencing state legislators (as caricatured in the Puck cartoon above), and instances of state legislatures deadlocking and failing to send any Senator to Congress for extended periods. These problems gave momentum to the Progressive argument that direct election would make the Senate more responsive and honest. The Populist Party had called for direct election in its 1892 platform, and gradually mainstream politicians took up the cause. By the early 1910s, nearly all states were effectively holding popular votes for Senators (some via non-binding primaries or laws binding legislators to the popular choice), making formal constitutional change feasible.

However, the reform’s broader impact on federalism was arguably under-appreciated by its advocates. As Hans J. Morgenthau famously noted, any significant constitutional change has unintended consequences. With hindsight, we see that the Seventeenth Amendment deprived the states of an “essential, second vertical check” on federal power . The Framers’ system had both horizontal checks (separation of powers among the branches) and vertical checks (state vs. federal). After 1913, that vertical check was weakened: state legislatures lost direct leverage in Washington. A Heritage Foundation analysis observes that originally, “the Framers intended to protect the interests of states as states,” and that senators chosen by state legislators were impelled to “preserve the original federal design” and resist federal aggrandizement. With popularly elected Senators, this incentive faded. Over time, Senators came to be judged by their ability to deliver federal projects and funds to their state’s electorate (the rise of “pork barrel” politics), rather than by how well they defended the constitutional partition of power. Federalism thus became an abstraction with few champions in the federal legislature.

Indeed, critics contend that the Seventeenth Amendment facilitated the explosive growth of the federal government in the 20th century. It is telling that the same year, 1913, also saw the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, which established a federal income tax. The combination of these two amendments proved transformative: one gave the federal government vast revenue-raising power independent of the states, and the other removed state governments’ influence in Congress. Together, they enabled the creation of a much larger central state – the federal government could now directly tax individual citizens (diminishing state financial power) and legislate without institutionalized state input. In effect, 1913 marks a final undoing of James Madison’s famous hope that the “ambition” of state and federal authorities would counteract each other. After 1913, states had far fewer constitutional weapons to push back against federal initiatives.

It is notable that the Seventeenth Amendment was adopted with remarkable speed and consensus – ratified by 36 states in less than 11 months with minimal opposition. This quick adoption reflected the Progressive Era faith in direct democracy and the widespread public resentment of perceived legislative corruption. However, some voices at the time did warn of the federalism costs. For example, Senator Elihu Root argued that direct elections would turn the Senate into just a duplicate of the House and remove an important safeguard of state authority. These warnings were largely drowned out by the enthusiasm for reform.

From a longer perspective, we can see the Seventeenth Amendment as a key moment when the “ontological legitimacy” of the original constitutional order was further eroded. The Framers’ Constitution had been built on a genealogy of governance flowing upward from states to federal union. After the Civil War, that flow was reversed in many ways – the federal government began dictating terms downward. The Seventeenth Amendment confirmed that reversal in the Senate’s composition. It decisively severed the genealogical line connecting the modern federal government to the structure carefully calibrated in 1787. Now the Senate, like the House, drew its mandate directly from “the people” in a mass electorate sense, rather than from the people acting as citizens of distinct state polities. This shifted the theoretical basis of legitimacy: the Union was now understood even more as a single people, rather than a federation of peoples. The sovereignty of the people, a concept dear to Enlightenment thought, was now channeled into nationwide political movements and central institutions, rather than mediated through state sovereignties. Some scholars argue this change in the Senate effectively constituted a second American republic – a fundamental alteration in form of government without outwardly overthrowing the Constitution.

It is interesting to note that even as it centralized power, the Seventeenth Amendment was sold as an expansion of democracy and good governance. Progressive reformers maintained the narrative that they were cleansing the system of corruption and making it more true to the principle of consent. In a sense, they were invoking America’s founding mythos (government by consent and by the people) to justify a measure that actually diluted the power of subnational consent (state legislatures’ consent) in favor of a more unitary popular sovereignty. This highlights a recurring theme: American liberal mythology can be deployed to mask or facilitate shifts in power that move further away from the original decentralized design. The language of “the people” is particularly powerful in this regard – it has a dual character, referring at once to the aggregate nation and to the plural peoples of the states. By increasingly privileging the national interpretation, reformers could claim fidelity to popular sovereignty while effectively sidelining the states as integral political units.

After 1913, the trend of centralization continued. The Progressive era and World War I saw Washington assert unprecedented regulatory and police powers (the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, federal agencies like the FTC in 1914, prohibition of alcohol via the 18th Amendment in 1919, etc.). The ideological groundwork was also laid by Progressive intellectuals who disparaged the old constitutional limitations as obsolete. Woodrow Wilson, both an academic and later U.S. President, wrote critically of the Constitution’s checks and balances, arguing that modern conditions required a strong administrative apparatus. In 1887, Wilson had argued that it was time to separate politics from administration and let experts manage government functions scientifically – he famously remarked, “It is getting to be harder to run a constitution than to frame one”. Such views epitomized a shift in ethos: away from the Founders’ wariness of concentrated power and toward a belief that enlightened central management could achieve the public good more efficiently than diffuse local governance.

Thus, the Seventeenth Amendment can be seen not in isolation but as part of a continuum of reforms and intellectual shifts that collectively moved the United States toward a unitary state model. No longer were the states considered serious counterweights to federal power; rather, they increasingly became administrative sub-units implementing national policies (a trend that would accelerate in the New Deal and Great Society eras). While states retained significant powers in theory and often in practice (over police powers, education, etc.), the political dynamic fundamentally changed: state governments lost their direct voice at the federal table, and over time, national party and interest structures subsumed many state differences.

By removing the state legislatures’ check, the Seventeenth Amendment arguably also widened the Overton window of national policy – ironically making it narrower in another sense. With the Senate no longer guarding state prerogatives, previously unthinkable federal interventions became thinkable (e.g. nationwide social programs, mandates on states). Yet for elected officials themselves, the boundaries of acceptable debate (the Overton window) remained constrained by what national public opinion (or powerful national interests) would tolerate. Issues like reviving state authority or repealing centralizing amendments themselves moved outside the window of mainstream debate. In the political culture that followed, few dared suggest reversing the Seventeenth Amendment, for instance; it became essentially untouchable, its progressive rationale sacrosanct. Thus, a narrow range of opinion – one that accepts a stronger central government as fait accompli – became the default for both major parties.

In summary, the Seventeenth Amendment was a turning point that extinguished a key element of the original constitutional order. It completed the process, begun in the Civil War, of redefining the United States from a federation of states into a more consolidated nation-state. While this amendment is often less discussed than others, its impact on the balance of power was immense: “The original design of the Constitution in Article I gave state governments an essential check on the power of the federal government,” one observer notes, and the Seventeenth Amendment removed that check . The result was that by the 1920s, the American political system’s form had shifted closer to unitary, even if its self-conception remained wrapped in the old terminology of federalism. The narrative of democracy was used to obscure a reality of consolidation. The following chapter will examine how, building on these changes, the administrative state arose – further entrenching centralized power and moving actual governance even farther from the romantic ideals of the  eighteenth century.

Chapter 4: The Administrative State – Consolidation of the Managerial Regime

If the Civil War and Reconstruction cracked the foundation of the old federal republic and the Progressive Era amendments reshaped its framework, the rise of the administrative state in the 20th century furnished the edifice of a new managerial regime. By “administrative state,” we refer to the proliferation of executive agencies, bureaus, and commissions that create and enforce regulations – wielding powers that blur the traditional separation of legislative, executive, and judicial functions. The emergence of this vast bureaucracy, especially during the New Deal and World War II periods, represented a quantum leap in federal government’s role in daily life. It also marked the effective end of the constitution of 1787 as a practical restraint on central power. While the Constitution formally remains the law of the land, much governance today happens through administrative regulations and executive orders rather than through the legislative processes envisioned by the Founders. This development is central to the thesis of America’s transformation into a unitary empire, as the administrative state operates in a highly centralized manner and often circumscribes the scope of debate and decision available to elected officials.

The roots of the administrative state lie in the late 19th-century responses to industrialization and social change. The first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), was established in 1887 to regulate the railroads. This itself was a departure – Congress creating an independent body with quasi-legislative powers to set rates. Progressive reformers and Populists pushed for such bodies to oversee big business, as they felt Congress lacked expertise and was too slow or corruptible to manage complex economic issues. By the early 1900s, the concept of expert commissions had taken hold. President Theodore Roosevelt and later Woodrow Wilson championed regulatory agencies (like the Food and Drug Administration’s precursor established by the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and the Federal Trade Commission in 1914) as means to ensure fairness and safety in the new industrial economy. As one account notes, “Industrialization and urban challenges in the late 1800s led to the rise of expert-led regulatory agencies,” and this administrative apparatus “expanded significantly in the 20th century—especially during the New Deal”.

The New Deal era (1933–1939) under Franklin D. Roosevelt truly birthed the modern administrative state. Confronted with the Great Depression, the Roosevelt administration and a compliant Congress created a plethora of new agencies (often called “alphabet soup” for their acronyms) to regulate banking (SEC), labor relations (NLRB), agriculture (AAA), public works (PWA), social security (SSA), and more. These agencies were often given broad mandates to make rules, adjudicate disputes, and enforce compliance – functions that mimic lawmaking, judging, and policing, all under the executive branch. The constitutional validity of some New Deal programs was initially challenged (the Supreme Court struck down certain early New Deal laws in 1935), but by 1937 the Court’s “switch in time” began upholding expansive federal interventions. From then on, constitutional constraints on delegation of power to agencies were relaxed. In 1946, Congress passed the Administrative Procedure Act, implicitly legitimizing the existence of a permanent bureaucracy with rule-making powers, so long as certain procedures (notice-and-comment, etc.) were followed.

By mid-20th century, the federal government had cemented its role as a manager of the national economy and society. The administrative state grew further in the 1960s and 1970s with Johnson’s Great Society (creating agencies for health, urban development, environmental protection, etc.) and the response to new social issues (e.g. EPA in 1970, OSHA in 1971). This sprawling bureaucracy meant that on a day-to-day basis, governance was often conducted by unelected officials in agencies who issue regulations that have the force of law. As a Ballotpedia summary explains, the administrative state “comprises executive branch agencies at the local, state, and federal levels, staffed by unelected officials” who “have the authority to create, interpret, and enforce regulations.” These agencies effectively exercise legislative power (by creating binding rules), executive power (by enforcing them), and even judicial power (through administrative law judges and hearing processes).

Supporters of the administrative state argue that such agencies are necessary in a complex society, bringing expertise and continuity that elected bodies lack. They claim that agencies can manage technical problems (like environmental standards or financial regulations) more efficiently and scientifically. Opponents, however, criticize that this structure “bypasses traditional checks and balances” and “concentrates power with unelected officials, undermining congressional authority and democratic accountability”. In short, critics view the administrative state as a constitutional inadvertence at best and an usurpation at worst – an unwritten fourth branch of government that has diluted the separation of powers and federalism.

From the perspective of this thesis, the rise of the administrative state represents the consolidation of the United States as a centralized managerial regime. No longer is policy primarily made by Congress (with its factional compromises and local representation) and implemented by states. Instead, professional bureaucrats in Washington develop policy details and implement programs uniformly across the nation, often leaving states only the role of local administrant under federal guidelines (or sometimes bypassing states entirely). This amounts to a consolidation of sovereignty in the national executive branch. Indeed, as early as the 1940s, political scientist James Burnham described a global trend of the “managerial revolution” in which traditional liberal democracy was giving way to rule by a new class of technocrats and managers. American paleoconservative thinker Samuel T. Francis, building on Burnham, later applied this analysis explicitly to the United States, noting that under the managerial state, “law is replaced by administrative decree, federalism is replaced by executive autocracy, and a limited government [is] replaced by an unlimited state.”. This stark description captures the extent to which the administrative state diverges from the original constitutional scheme. Whereas the Founders envisaged laws passed by a legislature and executed by a president, with states filling in the gaps with their own laws, the managerial state functions via a flood of regulations (decrees) promulgated by agencies with little direct input from Congress or states. Federalism, in Francis’s words, yields to autocracy – not autocracy of a single despot, but of an impersonal bureaucratic apparatus which effectively dictates many aspects of economic and social life.

Moreover, the managerial regime maintains itself by invoking abstract goals and moral imperatives that brook little opposition. Francis observed that this system “acts in the name of abstract goals, such as freedom, equality, brotherhood or positive rights, and uses its claim of moral superiority, power of taxation and wealth redistribution to keep itself in power”. In other words, the administrative state cloaks itself in the very Enlightenment values and humanitarian ideals that form the national creed. By doing so, it narrows the Overton window of debate: policies and viewpoints that challenge the fundamental trajectory of ever-expanding central administration are cast as not merely impractical but morally suspect (opposed to equality or progress, for example). This phenomenon is evident in modern American politics, where both major parties largely accept the existence of big government (disagreeing mainly on how to use it), and calls to dismantle major agencies or return to pre-New Deal governance are considered fringe.

Another aspect of the administrative state’s entrenchment is the development of what some call the “deep state” or the permanent government. Career officials in federal agencies often outlast and outwit transient elected leaders, leading to continuity of policy insulated from democratic swings. This is not conspiratorial but a structural reality: with tens of thousands of regulations on the books, the bureaucracy has tremendous inertia. Even a reform-minded president or Congress finds it difficult to significantly roll back administrative rules or agencies – not least because the legal and procedural barriers (including judicial deference to agencies under doctrines like Chevron deference) protect the status quo. The administrative state tends to grow or at least remain, rarely shrinking. Garet Garrett’s lament from 1938, at the dawn of the New Deal, rings truer than ever: “There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction.* The revolution is behind them, within the form**.” Garrett referred to the New Deal as a revolution that occurred under the guise of constitutional forms. Indeed, the forms – elections, Congress convening, courts operating – all continued, but the substance of power had shifted behind the scenes to agencies and executive planners.

One telling indicator of how thoroughly the administrative state has altered governance is the sheer volume of federal regulations compared to statutes. Each year, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) – containing agency rules – expands to thousands of pages far exceeding the U.S. Code (statutory law). This means that much of the “law” that governs Americans is not directly voted on by their representatives, but created by unelected officials. To the extent that elected officials debate policy, they are often confined to the narrow oversight or budgeting of this machinery, rather than fundamental questions of whether such federal programs should exist. For example, a congressman may debate how to tweak environmental regulations or how much to fund an agency, but rarely questions the agency’s right to exist or regulate in the first place – that question is long settled outside the Overton window.

The administrative state also has implications for federalism in a more nuanced sense: sometimes it bypasses states; other times, it coopts them. A common modern practice is for federal law to offer funds or set standards that effectively coerce state compliance (e.g. federal highway funds conditioned on states adopting certain laws like a drinking age of 21, or education funds tied to federal curricular standards). This process, known as “cooperative federalism,” often makes states administrative arms of the federal government. While states still administer programs like Medicaid or education, they do so following detailed federal rules. In this way, state governments have been subsumed as part of the larger managerial system, losing much of their independent policy-making capacity. The social contract, once conceptualized as between citizens and multiple levels of government, is implicitly rewritten so that the primary, if not sole, governing relationship is between the individual and the centralized state.

It is crucial to recognize that the growth of the administrative state occurred with remarkably little formal constitutional amendment. Aside from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments (and much later, amendments like the 18th and 21st for Prohibition and its repeal, or the 19th for women’s suffrage, which did not directly alter government structure), the Constitution’s text was not extensively revised to accommodate the new bureaucracy. Instead, this was a revolution “within the form” – accomplished through broad interpretation, congressional delegation, and executive innovation. This exacerbates the epistemological dissonance we focus on: outwardly, Americans still revere a Constitution that seems to provide for limited government and checks and balances, but the lived reality is a system where administrative agencies combining powers have become dominant. The public is often dimly aware of this discrepancy. Many still think in terms of “laws” passed by Congress, unaware that most rules they live under (from workplace regulations to consumer product standards) are formulated by agencies. The myth of a self-governing people through elected representatives continues to be taught, while the actual governance is technocratic and removed from popular participation.

To illustrate, consider an average American’s interaction with government: paying taxes (IRS regulations), driving a car (NHTSA safety standards, EPA emission rules), getting a paycheck (Department of Labor rules, Social Security and Medicare deductions), using electrical appliances (Consumer Product Safety Commission standards), taking medicine or eating food (FDA regulations), etc. At nearly every turn, a federal administrative rule is involved – few of which were explicitly legislated by Congress. Yet, in civic classes, one learns about the three branches and the Constitution, not about the Federal Register or how administrative law judges operate. This gap between civic narrative and governing reality contributes to a vague public confusion and disengagement. People sense that voting or lobbying their representatives often doesn’t produce change, but they still are told that “the people rule.” Meanwhile, when elected officials themselves feel constrained by what the bureaucracy or courts will permit, they too experience a kind of confusion or frustration within a system they theoretically lead.

Scholars and commentators from various perspectives have critiqued this state of affairs. In legal circles, there’s talk of the “Constitutional revolution of 1937” when the Supreme Court effectively gave a green light to the New Deal and thus to broad federal regulatory authority. Some have called the administrative state a “constitutional twilight zone” – not fully accountable to any branch. In political philosophy, there’s the notion of “soft despotism”, borrowed from Tocqueville: a regime where myriad rules and regulators reduce a people to docile compliance even as they nominally elect their leaders. The paleolibertarian writer Paul Gottfried has gone so far as to label the managerial state a “new theocratic religion” of sorts – one that enforces egalitarian doctrines with quasi-religious fervor . His point, and that of others like Joseph Sobran, is that the secular liberal state has taken on a moralizing character, defining orthodox opinion and punishing deviations (through mechanisms like political correctness or civil rights regulations) with the zeal of a church enforcing dogma . Whether one agrees with that characterization or not, it underscores the idea that the administrative-managerial regime is not “neutral” – it carries an ideological content and seeks to shape society according to particular values (however ostensibly enlightened).

By the late 20th and early 21st century, the dominance of the administrative state was evident. Occasional efforts to reform it (e.g. the Reagan-era attempts at deregulation, or more recent calls to “deconstruct the administrative state”) have met with limited success. Courts have begun to trim at its edges (for instance, recent Supreme Court decisions have reined in overly broad delegations under the “major questions doctrine”), but the fundamental presence of a huge centralized bureaucracy remains a fait accompli. For the purposes of our thesis, the key takeaway is that the administrative state completes the trajectory from federal republic to unitary empire. In an “empire,” we have a central authority issuing edicts that provinces must follow; in the administrative state, we have Washington agencies issuing regulations that all states and localities must follow, often regardless of local preferences. The resemblance is more than metaphorical: consider how uniform national curricula, policing standards, environmental policies, etc., often override what used to be state or local decisions. The local variety that federalism once protected tends to yield to a homogenizing central plan.

The epistemological consequence is that Americans continue to celebrate their 18th-century Constitution and the ideals of 1776, but those exist in a kind of civic religion bubble, largely disconnected from how power actually operates. The next chapter will delve into how this dissonance is actively sustained – how narrative and myth are used to reconcile people to a system that, if baldly described, might seem illegitimate when judged against the original American ideals. It will also explore how this affects the mindset of both electorate and officials, and how an Orthodox Christian perspective might interpret such a society where the letter and the spirit of truth have diverged.

Chapter 5: Maintaining the Myth – Narrative, Consent, and the Overton Window

Despite the sweeping structural changes outlined in previous chapters, the United States has retained a powerful mythological narrative about its system of government. This narrative – propagated through schools, media, and political rhetoric – holds that America is fundamentally the same government of the people, by the people, for the people that it was at the Founding. Key elements of this mythology include the ideas that the social contract and consent of the governed are operative, that elected officials meaningfully represent the people’s will, that power is checked and balanced, and that federalism still protects local autonomy. In reality, as we have seen, consent is often assumed rather than actual, representation is filtered through party and bureaucratic structures, and power is concentrated and technocratic. The persistence of the old ideals in popular belief alongside new realities in governance creates a kind of doublethink. This chapter examines how that doublethink is sustained and why it is politically and psychologically useful to the current regime.

One crucial aspect of narrative maintenance is the concept of civil religion mentioned earlier. The American civil religion continuously reinforces a reverence for the Constitution, the Founders, the flag, and other symbols of the original social contract. Every four years, when the President takes an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States,” it is an almost liturgical reaffirmation of the founding mythos – even if, in practice, the presidency now operates far beyond the Constitution’s original bounds. National holidays like Independence Day and Thanksgiving (the latter often linked to Pilgrim and founding narratives) encourage citizens to feel part of a continuing sacred story of liberty. Schoolchildren are taught (or at least used to be taught) that the United States stands for freedom, equality, and democracy, and that the Constitution is a miraculous document that ensures these values. While such patriotic education can foster social cohesion, it also means that questioning the validity of the current structure becomes tantamount to heresy. Post-Enlightenment liberal myths such as the infallibility of the popular will or the inevitability of progress become articles of faith that guide political discourse.

The idea of consent of the governed is a prime example of a maintained myth. In truth, it is difficult to argue that 330 million Americans actively consent to each law or policy that governs them – most participate in governance only indirectly through infrequent voting, if at all. Yet the system operates on a kind of tacit consent: citizens are deemed to consent by not rebelling or by taking part in the process in any minimal way (such as voting, even if only for a “lesser evil”). Political theorist Lysander Spooner, writing in 1870, sharply critiqued this notion: “Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.”. Spooner argued that the Constitution had “no authority” because no living person ever explicitly agreed to it, and voting could not be taken as genuine consent given the lack of any opt-out mechanism. Indeed, as we saw with secession, the system denies the legitimacy of opting out – meaning that consent is effectively coerced by geography (if you reside under U.S. jurisdiction, you are subject to its laws, like it or not, unless you emigrate). Yet the myth of consent remains powerfully ingrained: Americans generally believe their democracy gives them a voice and that the government’s legitimacy flows from their collective approval. By continual reinforcement of this belief (civics classes, “get out the vote” campaigns, celebratory elections night coverage, etc.), the public is dissuaded from fundamentally questioning the legitimacy of the regime. As long as people believe they have consented or that their participation matters, they are less likely to challenge the moral authority of the state.

The social contract, as a theoretical construct, also endures as a rhetorical device. Politicians evoke it when speaking of “our democracy” or the idea that we all have obligations to the system in return for the system’s protection. However, if pressed on when this contract was signed or who the parties are, few could answer – it is a metaphor that confers a patina of philosophical justification to government actions. The narrative is that through the Constitution (and by extension, subsequent elections and laws) Americans have a continuing agreement on how they are governed. This narrative glosses over the reality that the original contract has been altered without direct consent (e.g. the Reconstruction forced consent, or judicial interpretations changing constitutional meaning). The population simply inherits the current system and is told it is essentially the same social contract from 1787 updated modestly by amendment. The more radical breaks (like 1865 or 1913 or 1937) are not framed as the establishment of a new contract, but rather the fulfillment of the old – a crucial narrative move to maintain continuity in legitimacy.

Another mechanism of sustaining the myth is the Overton window of permissible debate in politics and media. The Overton window refers to the range of policy ideas considered acceptable for public discussion. In the United States, mainstream debate among major officeholders typically stays within boundaries that do not challenge the fundamentals of the centralized state. For instance, one can debate what tax rate is appropriate, but not the existence of the income tax (after the Sixteenth Amendment made it permanent). One can argue about how to regulate healthcare, but suggestions to fully leave it to states or markets are often dismissed as unrealistic or extreme. Similarly, when was the last time a prominent politician suggested that any federal agency be abolished outright? Such proposals (even if occasionally made, say, about the Department of Education or the EPA) rarely gain traction and are portrayed as fringe. This self-censoring of discourse effectively props up the status quo.

The Overton window is policed both formally and informally. Formally, the two-party system provides a limited menu of policy options; third parties or intra-party dissidents who stray too far from the accepted line rarely gain power. Informally, media commentary and academic expertise often ridicule or ignore ideas outside the consensus. For example, an elected official who earnestly calls for a return to the pre-New Deal constitutional interpretation will likely be marginalized as a crank; a judge who questions long-settled precedents enabling the administrative state may be lambasted as “out of the mainstream.” This creates a feedback loop where ambitious politicians learn not to question the foundational myths, but to work within them. They thus reinforce those myths in their rhetoric, even if privately they know the system works differently.

The role of elected officials in this context is intriguing. Many likely start their careers believing sincerely in the civics-class version of American governance. Over time, as they operate within the machinery, they may come to see the discrepancies – the influence of bureaucracies, the constraints of entrenched interests, the way certain issues are non-negotiable. This can lead to cynicism or resignation, but publicly they continue to voice the platitudes of popular sovereignty. An illustrative anecdote is President Barack Obama’s remark, reportedly made in frustration, that he wished he could “just do it on my own” regarding a policy, lamenting the need to deal with Congress (he then increasingly governed by executive orders). This hints at the tension between myth (the President as constrained executor of Congress’s will) and reality (the President as de facto primary policy-maker when Congress is gridlocked). Nonetheless, even when acting unilaterally, presidents clothe their actions in the language of the people’s will or constitutional duty. For instance, executive orders are often justified as implementing the law or the people’s needs when Congress fails to act. The narrative of “doing the people’s business” is maintained, even if the people’s representatives did not actually pass the policy.

Importantly, language and symbolism are continuously used to keep the mythology alive. Every session of Congress opens with a reading of the Constitution’s text, as a kind of homage. The federal government’s branches frequently invoke the Founders: the Supreme Court cites the Federalist Papers and dresses in 18th-century style robes, Congress has moments of silence for Jefferson and Adams on July 4, the President lays a hand on a Bible and echoes constitutional phrasing in inaugurals. These rituals create a sense of unbroken continuity and legitimacy – a kind of secular liturgy that sanctifies the modern state’s actions. They serve to obscure the rupture that has occurred. In theological terms, one might say the form (the outward signs) remains orthodox while the content (the actual power relations) has drifted; yet the form’s continuity reassures people that all is well.

We should also acknowledge how mass media and education shape public perception. For much of the 20th century, school textbooks taught a triumphalist version of U.S. history, downplaying controversies of Reconstruction or the debates over the Federal Reserve, etc. The focus was on broadening democracy and increasing justice (narratives that cast amendments and federal interventions as moral progress). This aligns with what Francis noted: the managerial state presents itself as the champion of abstract high ideals (freedom, equality). A citizen thus grows up believing that each step of increased federal power was a step toward greater fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence’s promises. The cognitive dissonance – that these steps often concentrated power in ways the Founders would likely have resisted – is papered over by highlighting the positive outcomes (e.g. ending slavery, giving women the vote, ensuring civil rights) and attributing them to federal action. The narrative therefore becomes: the federal government had to become stronger in order to guarantee liberty and equality for all, succeeding where state-level governance had failed. There is some truth in that narrative (e.g. Southern states did oppress Black citizens until federal action was taken), which makes the myth all the more potent; it interweaves moral truth with structural change such that opposing the structural change seems like opposing the moral truth.

In contemporary politics, we often see myth maintenance when politicians of all stripes lavish praise on the Constitution and the system, even as they express frustration or promises to “fix Washington.” No one of significance says “the system itself is broken beyond repair” – rather they say “Washington is broken because it’s not living up to our founding principles, so elect me to restore it.” Thus, even dissent or populist anger is channeled back into confirming the founding myth. A Tea Party conservative and a progressive reformer might both say the answer is to return to the true meaning of America (which each defines differently), not to question America’s foundational narrative. The idea that our current federal government might be in some sense an illegitimate progeny of a coup (be it Reconstruction or the New Deal) is virtually unutterable in mainstream forums; it would be met with either incomprehension or condemnation as extremism.

One might ask why this mythology persists so strongly. Part of the answer is that it provides legitimacy. As political scientist Hannah Arendt noted, every regime requires legitimacy – a story of why it deserves allegiance. The American story of being the champion of liberty and the embodiment of popular will is a powerful source of legitimacy, both domestically and internationally. It forestalls revolutionary sentiment because people generally believe we already have the ideal system that others can only dream of. To concede that the U.S. has drifted into an oligarchic or bureaucratic form would undercut that legitimacy and perhaps spur movements to radically alter or resist the federal government. Elites across the spectrum have an incentive to keep the myth intact, because it keeps public challenge within safe bounds. It directs discontent into conventional political channels (elections, petitions, lawsuits) that rarely threaten the overall structure.

From a cynical perspective, this is a form of social control: as long as the majority believes in the fairness and voice of the system, they will not resort to dangerous alternatives. The narrative also fosters a sense of national identity and unity, which is beneficial for maintaining order and pursuing collective endeavors. Thus, narrative and myth are not maintained simply by inertia, but actively – through ceremonies, speeches (almost every State of the Union address contains a panegyric to American democracy), and media framing.

An interesting contrast can be drawn with more openly authoritarian regimes, which may rely on myths of their own (such as divine right or one-party liberation ideology). The American myth is comparatively benign and flexible; it doesn’t identify a single Great Leader or Party, but rather a set of transcendent principles and institutions. This abstraction makes it even harder to pin down the source of dissonance – you can’t vote out “the Constitution” or “liberty,” after all. And because both government critics and defenders draw from the same pool of revered ideals, the overarching system is continually reinforced even by those who claim to want change.

One could argue that the myth is so pervasive that many in the governing class themselves are partly captive to it. Judges, for example, must articulate their decisions in the language of constitutional fidelity, even when effectively creating new jurisprudence that expands federal power. Some likely believe they are being faithful, because the myth itself has evolved standards of fidelity (e.g. fidelity now includes ideas of living constitution, implying the Founders’ principles are met by adaptation over time). Similarly, members of Congress often express frustration at having ceded authority to executive agencies, yet they rarely reclaim it – possibly because they too accept the narrative that these agencies are needed for the public good, or because they fear voter backlash if they dismantle popular programs. So they instead perform oversight hearings that give an image of accountability without altering fundamentals.

To summarize, the maintenance of America’s liberal myths and founding narrative is an active, complex process involving education, ritual, rhetoric, and the policing of discourse. It creates a veneer of continuity over what is essentially a transformed polity. This veneer prevents the general populace from experiencing a crisis of legitimacy that might otherwise arise if the gap between myth and reality were laid bare. In the final chapter, we will turn to an Orthodox Christian philosophical and theological perspective to further analyze what it means, in terms of truth and legitimacy, to live under such a system – one that says one thing and is another. We will consider how this sustained epistemological incoherence affects the soul of the nation and of individuals, drawing parallels to spiritual conditions described in Orthodox theology.

Chapter 6: Orthodox Christian Reflections – Legitimacy, Truth, and Epistemological Incoherence

Having traced the historical and structural transformation of American governance, we now shift to a more reflective plane, employing categories from Orthodox Christian theology and philosophy to interpret the rupture and dissonance we have identified. Orthodox Christianity, with its emphasis on the harmony of truth (Orthodoxy meaning “right belief”) and the existential reality of communal life, offers a unique lens to evaluate political order. In Orthodox thought, truth is ultimately a person (Jesus Christ, the Logos or divine Word) and living in truth is both a spiritual and practical imperative. Societies, like individuals, can depart from truth and embrace delusion or falsehood – a condition known as plani or spiritual deception. The epistemological incoherence in American political life – the divergence between the mythos (what is said and believed) and the ontos (what is) – can be seen as a form of societal plani.

Orthodox Christianity also has a rich tradition of political theology, dating back to the Roman (Byzantine) Empire, which can help articulate notions of legitimacy and authority. One key principle historically was symphonia – the ideal of harmony between the temporal power (the Emperor or state) and the spiritual power (the Church), each operating in their proper sphere but cooperating for the salvation of the people. In symphonic theory, a legitimate state is one that upholds truth and justice in accord with divine law, and the Church in turn blesses the state’s governance. Of course, reality often fell short of this ideal; nonetheless, it provides a standard: legitimacy is tied to truth and moral order.

From that viewpoint, how would an Orthodox analysis regard the U.S. transition from a consensual federation to a coercive centralized state? Firstly, it would likely note the break in genealogical continuity as analogous to a break in apostolic succession. Just as the Orthodox Church holds that a true Church maintains unbroken continuity from the Apostles (any break away might constitute a schism or heresy if it deviates in doctrine), one could say the American polity experienced a kind of political schism in the 1860s. The “new birth” of the nation was not clearly in line with the old covenant (the Constitution) – arguably it was a new covenant imposed unilaterally. In theological terms, one might call that an event requiring reconciliation or repentance to restore legitimacy. However, instead of repentance (acknowledging a revolution took place), the narrative denied the break, insisting on continuity. This is akin to a church that has changed its teaching but insists it has not – a state of heterodoxy disguised as orthodoxy. Orthodox metaphysics would consider that a dangerous falsehood, because it creates a gap between essence and appearance – a form of hypocrisy (from Greek hypokrisis, acting under a mask).

Orthodox ethics stress the importance of integrity of mind and heart – what in Greek is called nous (the eye of the soul) being clear to perceive reality as it is. When a society’s official doctrines (its myths) conflict with the experienced reality, it creates what might be termed a noetic dissonance. People cannot reconcile what they are taught (e.g. “we have a government based on consent and local self-rule”) with what they observe (“every aspect of life is governed by distant authorities I have no control over”). This confusion can lead to cynicism, disengagement, or misdirected zeal (fighting phantoms rather than real problems). In Orthodox spirituality, confusion and dissonance are often seen as symptoms of the demonic or diabolic – literally dia-bolos means “the divider,” the one who fractures truth and sows confusion. When truth is not whole, the ensuing chaos is attributed to a departure from divine order. As St. Paul wrote, “God is not the author of confusion but of peace” (1 Cor. 14:33). By that measure, the epistemological confusion of the American body politic indicates a need for a return to coherence – a repentance (metanoia, change of mind) on a societal level, acknowledging truth.

What would acknowledging truth look like in this context? It could mean openly admitting that the United States is no longer what it claims to be, and then either returning to first principles or forging a new, honest social contract. Theologically, we might compare it to Israel under kings in the Old Testament. Israel asked for a king “like the other nations,” which God described as a rejection of His direct rule (1 Samuel 8). God allowed it but warned that kings would centralize and oppress (take tithes, sons for war, etc.). The people persisted, and indeed under Solomon the kingdom became heavy with forced labor and taxes, ultimately splitting in two because of that burden. One might analogize the U.S. centralization to Israel’s monarchy: a desire for national glory or efficiency leading to a loss of the original covenant’s purity. And like Israel’s split into Judah and Israel, America did split North and South; unlike Israel’s split, America forcefully re-united, but at what cost? The spiritual cost can be seen as a kind of loss of soul. Christ said, “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?”. We might ask, what did it profit America to gain an indestructible Union and a global empire if in the process the nation lost the very soul of its founding ideals?

Orthodox Christian thought also emphasizes humility and truth-telling as necessary for health (both spiritual and communal). Maintaining a lie, even a noble-sounding one, is corrosive. The longer a society lives in a discrepancy between what it says and what it does, the more it breeds cynicism and nihilism among its people. Indeed, contemporary commentators have noted a rise of cynicism in American culture – a sense that politics is performative and not addressing real issues, leading to apathy or nihilistic attitudes especially among the youth. This is reminiscent of what Fr. Seraphim Rose (an American Orthodox monk) described as the “sickness of nihilism” creeping in when genuine faith (in the transcendent, in meaning) is lost. He wrote, “In the Liberal view, the people rule, and not God; God Himself is a ‘constitutional monarch’ Whose authority has been totally delegated to the people, and Whose function is entirely ceremonial. The government erected upon such a faith is very little different, in principle, from a government erected upon total disbelief… it is clearly pointed in the direction of Anarchy.”. Rose here critiqued the modern idea of sovereignty of the people as effectively dethroning God and making God a mere figurehead in public life – much as in American civil religion, God-language is present but the actual authority is wholly human-centered. His conclusion is stark: a society built on such a foundation, with no higher truth to anchor it, will drift toward anarchy (in the sense of lawlessness or collapse of order) because it lacks a genuine transcendent legitimacy.

Applying Rose’s insight: the United States, by replacing a covenant under God (the founding had many references to God-given rights and Providence) with a myth of pure popular sovereignty, ends up in a situation where, paradoxically, no one truly sovereign and responsible. “We the People” is an abstraction that in practice becomes a mask for whoever wields power. Theologically, one could say that America’s civil religion turned the People into an idol – a golden calf of sorts – and as with all idols, it eventually disappoints and confuses its worshippers. The sovereignty of “the people” has justified both the expansion of government (“the people want the government to do X”) and the suppression of dissent (“enemies of the people”). Yet, who actually is “the people”? It often means the majority or the loudest voices, which in turn can be swayed by propaganda or elite interests. In Orthodox terms, the absence of a transcendent check (like the Orthodox Emperor was ideally checked by the Church’s moral authority) means there is no one to call the nation back when it errs; the people cannot easily repent because the narrative seldom admits they strayed – it only says they are progressing.

Orthodox tradition also has a concept of Sobornost’ (a Russian term meaning spiritual community of many jointly living people). It implies a harmony in truth among members of a community. One could ask: does sobornost’ exist in modern America? Or has the epistemological dissonance destroyed genuine community, replacing it with fragmentation? The confusion between myth and reality certainly contributes to polarization. Different factions cling to different aspects of the myth or different interpretations of reality, and without a commonly agreed truth, social unity frays. In an Orthodox view, unity must be in truth (as in the Creed, “with one mind and one heart” confessing the truth). A unity founded on a half-truth or a lie is illusory and will crack. One might argue this is what we see: political unity in the U.S. is largely ceremonial (we all salute the flag, but agree on little else of substance). The Overton window may enforce a shallow consensus on regime legitimacy, but beneath that, divisions deepen because the real questions – e.g. who should rule, at what level, for what ends – are suppressed, not resolved. It’s comparable to a church that silences discussion of a dogmatic controversy without resolving it – eventually, a schism or collapse of faith occurs.

Orthodox Christianity also emphasizes repentance (metanoia) as the path to restoration. What would repentance look like for American governance? It might start with truth-telling: openly acknowledging the dissonance. Perhaps a future statesman or movement could articulate: “We as a nation have wandered from our first principles; we have built an empire while telling ourselves it’s still a republic. Let us be honest about what we have become, and either restore the republic or establish a new, forthright social contract.” Such an approach would certainly face resistance from those invested in the status quo myths, but it could be a cleansing moment. In Orthodox terms, confession of sin is the first step to healing. The “sin” here is not in the moral sense of the changes themselves (some changes, like ending slavery, were clearly moral goods), but the dishonesty surrounding how those changes were made and what they imply for legitimacy.

The Orthodox perspective also brings into focus the concept of legitimate authority. St. Paul in Romans 13 spoke of governmental authorities as ministers of God for the good, deserving obedience insofar as they punish evil and reward good. Classical Christian thought thus supports obeying lawful authority but also implies that authority must actually be fulfilling its God-given role to be legitimate in God’s eyes. A government that contradicts fundamental justice or truth risks losing its legitimacy. St. Augustine famously said, “Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale?”. Augustine’s point was that without true justice, the difference between a government and a band of robbers is one of scale only. Now, consider an America where, hypothetically, the administrative state enforces unjust policies or the electoral system becomes a mere charade – would it not fit Augustine’s warning? If the government drifts so far from its proclaimed principles that “justice” becomes whatever the powerful say it is, then the myth of consent becomes a cover for what is effectively rule by force or fraud – organized in a more sophisticated way than a gang, but morally analogous. Orthodox Christianity would urge both rulers and subjects in such a scenario to return to real justice. This might involve dramatic changes – perhaps devolution of power back to rightful local authorities, or ceasing policies that violate natural law – to realign with truth.

Finally, an Orthodox metaphysical insight is the distinction between essence and energies (in theology, God’s essence is unknowable but His energies act in the world). By analogy, one might say the essence of American government (what it actually is and does) is hidden behind an energy or outward action (what it declares and how it presents itself). There is a sort of nous/phenomenon split: the phenomenon (appearance) is democratic consent-based federalism; the noumenon (actuality) is centralized managerial oligarchy. An Orthodox approach would say this duplicity cannot persist indefinitely; reality will assert itself. Either the appearance will be discarded (leading to open acknowledgement that the U.S. is an empire and maybe needs a different legitimating principle) or the actuality will be reformed to match the appearance (a revival of true federalism and limited government). In spiritual life, living a lie leads to spiritual death unless corrected. In political life, living a lie could lead to civic decay or crisis unless corrected.

Solzhenitsyn’s admonition to “live not by lies” resonates here. He urged individuals under Soviet tyranny to at least refuse to affirm what they know is false. In the American context, “live not by lies” might mean citizens and officials refusing to engage in the ritual flattery of a system that they perceive as broken. This doesn’t mean violent revolt, but it could mean speaking uncomfortable truths. For example, an official might publicly note how Congress has ceded authority to the administrative state contrary to the Constitution and call for change, rather than pretending everything operates as normal. Citizens might question the sacred cows (like: is the federal government’s ever-expanding role actually good, or have we idolized national power at the expense of local community?).

Orthodox Christianity also offers hope in the concept of metanoia – that through honest reflection and God’s grace, even deeply entrenched falsehood can be overcome and truth restored. A nation, like a person, can experience a change of heart. It often takes suffering or crisis to trigger it. Perhaps economic or social turmoil in the future will force Americans to confront the gap between myth and reality (for instance, a federal fiscal crisis might devolve responsibilities back to states out of necessity, reviving genuine federalism in practice). If that happens, those steeped in the founding narratives might find themselves oddly empowered to reclaim local self-government – the myth could then become a guide back to reality, rather than a cover for unreality. In a way, the seeds of renewal lie in the very ideals that have been misused. The concept of consent of the governed, for instance, could be reinvigorated by implementing more direct local decision-making or subsidiarity, aligning actual governance with genuine consent.

In sum, the Orthodox Christian perspective provides a language of truth vs. falsehood, wholeness vs. fragmentation, humility vs. pride to analyze the American political transformation. It suggests that the rupture in the constitutional order is not only a legal or historical problem, but a spiritual and moral one: a departure from truth that yields confusion. The legitimacy of a polity, in this view, rests not merely on procedural or mythical consent, but on conformity to truth and justice – on fulfilling the God-intended role of government as guardian of the good. A state that relies on illusion to sustain itself is in a precarious state of soul, much like Saul, the first king of Israel, who started humbly but lost God’s favor when he succumbed to pride and self-deception. The call would be to return to first principles in sincerity or to chart a new course honestly under God, rather than persist in a convenient fiction. Only through such clarity can the “mind” of the nation be healed of its dissonance and coherence (a kind of political Hesychia, peace) be attained.

Conclusion

The United States, in its evolution from a federated republic to a centralized managerial state, presents a study in the complexities of constitutional legitimacy and national self-understanding. Following the Civil War, the de facto structure of American governance was fundamentally altered – the Union became indissoluble by force, states were subordinated to federal authority, and over time, an expansive administrative apparatus took hold. Yet throughout these transformations, the de jure mythos of American government – the lore of federalism, the social contract, popular sovereignty, and limited government by consent – was carefully preserved in public consciousness and discourse. This thesis has traced how key milestones, such as the Reconstruction Amendments, the Seventeenth Amendment, and the rise of the administrative state, severed the genealogical and ontological continuity of the 1787 constitutional order, creating an ever-widening chasm between the legal-constitutional mythology of the United States and its actual structure of governance.

We have seen that the Reconstruction era introduced a new constitutional reality under the guise of fulfilling the old – centralizing power to enforce civil rights, but also coercing adherence to a redefined Union . The Progressive period’s reforms, epitomized by the Seventeenth Amendment, further consolidated national power at the expense of the states, even as they were sold as enhancements of democracy. The administrative state’s 20th-century ascent then created a mode of governance by technocratic decree, so much so that by the 21st century observers could accurately say that “law is replaced by administrative decree, federalism is replaced by executive autocracy, and a limited government [is] replaced by an unlimited state”. In short, the United States became, in many functional respects, a unitary empire – a highly centralized polity with uniform rule over formerly semi-sovereign constituents – while outwardly maintaining the form and symbols of the old republic.

This disjunction has fostered a profound epistemological dissonance in American political life. Citizens and officials alike operate within a narrative that does not match their empirical reality. The electorate is told it is sovereign, yet often feels impotent to change policies set by distant bureaucracies. Elected representatives swear fidelity to a Constitution of checks and balances, even as they delegate away their authority to executive agencies. Public school civics and actual civics diverge, leading to public confusion, growing distrust in institutions, and a susceptibility to polarization as people lose a coherent shared understanding of how they are governed. Crucially, this thesis has argued that such dissonance is actively sustained – through patriotic ritual, through the framing of political discourse within a narrow Overton window that excludes fundamental challenges, and through the conscious echoing of founding myths by those in power, irrespective of the realities of power.

The integration of Orthodox Christian metaphysical and ethical perspectives provided a unique angle on these phenomena. It illuminated the moral and spiritual dimensions of a polity maintaining a “noble lie” about itself. From that perspective, the rupture in America’s constitutional genealogy is not merely a legal quibble but a break in truth that has consequences for the nation’s integrity and health. We drew analogies to concepts like heresy and schism: just as a church that strays from true doctrine but claims continuity can lead souls astray, a nation that strays from its declared principles but claims unchanged legitimacy can engender cynicism and disorder. The Orthodox insight that no society can flourish in a lie without eventual reckoning is pertinent. A government’s legitimacy, ultimately, is a matter of truth – as Augustine’s dictum reminds us, without justice (truth in action), a government devolves into a band of robbers.

Applying this standard, one confronts the reality that many Americans have begun to perceive: that their political system, despite its democratic forms, often feels unresponsive and distant – an oligarchy in democratic clothing. This perception, unless addressed by re-aligning myth with reality, threatens to further erode trust and civic virtue. Both the populace and the elites risk falling into what in Orthodoxy is called prelest, a state of spiritual delusion, mistaking falsehood for truth. The antidote, as ever, is a return to truth: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” in the famous words of the Gospel. In political terms, this could mean a candid national dialogue about the structure and purpose of American government in the 21st century – a willingness to re-examine whether current arrangements truly serve the common good and the ideals of liberty.

What might practical steps toward coherence look like? One possibility is a revival of federalism not just as a slogan but in practice: allowing states and local communities greater self-determination within the Union, thus restoring some of the consent dynamic from the bottom up. This could alleviate the strain of one-size-fits-all policies and let the social contract be refreshed at more local levels where consent is tangible. Another step could be restoring checks and balances by reining in the administrative state – for instance, through legislation that requires major regulations to get an affirmative vote by Congress (as proposed in various “REINS Act” bills) or through the judiciary continuing to enforce limits on delegation. Such measures would begin to make the operation of government look more like the textbook version.

Ultimately, however, bridging the myth-reality gap may require something more profound: a cultural and moral reawakening. The American people would need to reclaim the virtues of self-government – personal responsibility, community spirit, and a healthy skepticism of concentrated power – which cannot simply be legislated into existence. Here, the Orthodox emphasis on repentance and renewal of mind (metanoia) is apt. It suggests that Americans collectively would benefit from humbly reassessing the course of their nation. Rather than clinging pridefully to the notion that America is already the freest and best governed nation, the more patriotic course might be a humble effort to become once again what the Founders intended (or even to aspire to something better aligned with enduring truths of human flourishing). As one Orthodox elder advised, “Never confuse truth with consensus,” and “telling the truth is an act of love.” In that spirit, confronting the uncomfortable truth about the unitary empire behind the republican veil is not an act of disloyalty, but of love for the nation – a necessary step toward realigning the American polity with the principles of justice, consent, and ordered liberty that form its honorable heritage.

In closing, this thesis has sought to demonstrate, with support from historical evidence and scholarly analysis, that the United States’ post-Civil War development represents not continuity but revolution within the form. It is a revolution that succeeded in practice while masking itself in the garments of the past. The legal-constitutional mythology, sustained as it is by narrative and habit, continues to exert a powerful hold on the American imagination, for better and for worse. It undergirds national unity and purpose, yet at the cost of clarity and honesty. The challenge moving forward is whether the American people and their leaders can courageously synchronize the nation’s constitutional self-image with its political reality – whether they can bring the myth into accord with the truth either by reforming the reality or by frankly redefining the social contract. History suggests that such realignments do occur, often in response to crises that lay bare the untenability of old illusions. If and when that moment arrives for America, it will test the durability of the American experiment.

Perhaps Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation offers a fitting coda: “America is great because she is good; if America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” The goodness Tocqueville referred to was rooted in America’s early character of local freedoms, religious morality, and community self-rule. To the extent that the metamorphosis into a centralized empire has distanced the nation from that original goodness, the path back to true greatness lies in rediscovering and reinstating that goodness in public life. That means clearing away comforting falsehoods and recommitting to the principles that in truth elevate a polity: justice, genuine consent, subsidiarity, and humble acknowledgement of a moral order higher than raison d’état. In rejoining perception with reality, and power with principle, the United States may resolve its epistemological crisis and renew the promise of its founding – not as myth or propaganda, but as lived and verifiable political truth.

Sources:

• U.S. National Archives, Declaration of Independence: Transcript
  
• Journal of the Civil War Era, The Civil War and State-Building: A Reconsideration
  
• Jack Miller Center, Fourteenth Amendment history
  
• Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869)
  
• Heritage Foundation, 17th Amendment Weakened Balance of Power
  
• Reagan Library, Amendment 17 – Direct Election of Senators
  
• Ballotpedia, Administrative State
  
• Wikipedia, Managerial State (quoting Samuel T. Francis)
  
• Chronicles Magazine (Samuel T. Francis), Impeachable Offenses
  
• A-Z Quotes (Lysander Spooner)
  
• Goodreads (Fr. Seraphim Rose)