I recognize I have not been at this post for sometime as I write my next book, Witness to Empire. As a taste, what follows here is the intro to chapter 9, where I start to bring history home to the present and spend the last two chapters (9 and 10) dealing with what we should be doing together and independently; “Healing Together” and “Personal Deliverance,” respectively.

Intro to Chapter 9 “Healing Together”:

While the founders of our country were incredibly diligent in their careful creation of our republic, as evidenced in the debates waged in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, the idea that they were creating an empire that would become the world’s sole superpower in the late twentieth century was well beyond their contemplation in the eighteenth. They indeed were pursuing perfection in their designs and had the enormous benefit of dealing with what was (notwithstanding indigenous populations) a blank canvas upon which to paint in North America; a benefit the French might have desired for their revolution. Yet the founders remained dubious about the durability of what they had designed, let alone considering world dominance. The process of debate, accommodation, and compromise that brought the colonies into union meant everyone was left with their own particular doubts, and the overhang of slavery against the ideal of “all men are created equal” was expected to produce a continuous fracturing of the nation’s spirit—perhaps even cause the republic’s demise.

In their post-presidential years, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who had been bitter political rivals mended their fences and engaged in lengthy correspondence about matters ranging from philosophy to horticulture. The issue of Missouri’s admittance into the union in 1820 as a slave or free state were on their minds feeling the issue may cause a civil war. Jefferson wrote to another friend, John Holmes,

the Missouri question … like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.” He went on to say “I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves, by the generation of ’76 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it.[i]

Adams was more optimistic, although barely more. He had a stronger belief in the perfectibility of humans and their ability to achieve higher standards of behavior, but he also expressed to Jefferson his hope that that “the Missouri question … will follow the other waves under the Ship and to do no harm.”[ii] Neither expected the Union to survive past the mid-19^th century, let alone into the twenty-first. Both considered the United States a grand experiment. Mystically, they both died within hours of each other of natural causes on July 4, 1826—on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The United States, born in the crisis of the American Revolution, and surviving the crises of the Civil War and, subsequently, the Great Depression and World War II, gained power politically, economically, and culturally after each. The fourth crisis we are enduring today, marked by the War on Terror, the Great Recession, the Covid-19 pandemic, and magnified and extended by the presidency of Donald Trump is the first crisis after which American power will decline. Its greatest losses are political—both domestically and internationally. The federal government is its own five-alarm fire, while in the international system America’s relative power peaked in the early 2000s, and has been declining since—most rapidly during Trump’s second term due to his rapacious and impetuous constitution.

The business sector remains a source of strength and innovation so the economy remains robust, as long as fiscal malfeasance by our federal government in the form of our ever-expanding national debt does not cause the collapse of the dollar, which is a real possibility. To be clear, if there is one Achilles heel of the American empire, it is if the dollar loses its status as the reserve currency of the world. That would cause a catastrophic collapse of the United States government and global financial markets. On the cultural front, we Americans continue to project influence in a (mostly) positive manner through the arts, literature, music, and religious/spiritual endeavors. Many still look to America to understand what the next best thing may be, from technology to fashion. And, we still excel in higher education in both quality and access, even while many Asian countries do a better job in primary and secondary education. (Although Trump has attacked that source of American power as well.)

If we do everything from here just right, America can become a graceful former empire; in declining power, but with a renewed sense of humility and restraint. A nation that can revitalize many of the strengths that made it a superpower, first and foremost being a recommitment to the promise of the American Dream; that one can become anything they want to become in the United States of America regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, heritage, or religious or sexual preferences. This is the most basic promise of freedom our founders sought, albeit imperfectly. This is what made America, America, before we lost our way. This is the condition that allowed each successive American generation (until recently) to have a better life than the last. The freedom to dream is a prerequisite to thriving.

We have many wounds to heal before unity returns and a common sense of spirit may be claimed. And while it is also sobering to acknowledge that other empires that fell before us, from the Romans to the British, cannot claim that they achieved graceful former empire status, neither does that make it impossible. Counting Americans out has proven, over and over again, to be a fool’s wager. At the core of our challenge is returning to these three tenets: that we express our free will in a responsible manner consistent with a set of common virtues (responsible individualism); that we always strive to make things better than the manner in which we found them (perfectibility); and that we seek to set the example for others to follow (exemplar exceptionalism). In short, we must shed the narcissism, entitlement, and hubris that have twisted the American character during Crisis IV. Most broadly, that we recommit to the Golden Rule of treating others as we wish to be treated. If we fail at this, broad spectrum nihilism will set in, as it did with other failing empires, and any prospect of grace will be foreclosed.

[i] Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Lefferson/03-15-02-0518 (accessed August 18, 2026).

[ii] John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, December 21, 1819, Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7287 (accessed August 18, 2026).