One hundred years ago, the United States faced an ugly reality that anticipated ours in 2020. The aftermath of World War I included economic depression and turmoil. A flu epidemic added to the chaos and struck down hundreds of thousands of Americans in the space of a few months.

Wages for working men had remained stagnant during wartime, but the removal of wartime controls meant prices of regular goods and services were skyrocketing. The popularity of communism and anarchism appeared to be growing. Riots and strikes in major American cities — from Boston to Seattle — were described with horror in the daily newspapers. //

In such a moment, Calvin Coolidge’s firm opposition to lawlessness as governor of Massachusetts made him famous. Voters rewarded his resiliency during the Boston Police Strike of 1919, along with his combination of courage and integrity. In two years, he was vice president. Two years later, he was president.

The parallels between his time and our own are instructive. If ever there were a need to recover his constitutional and political vision and apply it to our own day, that time is now. Constitution Day is an appropriate time to start. By recovering Coolidge’s understanding of the Constitution, we can begin to move in the right direction. //

Coolidge responded to such critics indirectly. Rather than quibble about economic data or dispute the endlessly disputable details of the Constitution, he underscored its religious foundation. It was important to remember these facts, he explained, because “No people can look forward who do not look backward. The strongest guarantee of the future is the past.”

According to Coolidge, America’s political principles were logical developments from its history, and at the center of American history is the story of religion. The earliest colonies were carved out of the wilderness so the colonists might worship God according to conscience. They were born in a desire for freedom, and this desire matured with time. //

Coolidge asserted that the Great Awakening was influential in expanding the American view of individual liberty and rights. The Awakening and its truths were essential in the success of the American Revolution and the formation of the Constitution. He explained: “The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them.”

For Coolidge, it was the Constitution that brought the principles of the Revolution to full maturity and practical significance. The adoption of the Constitution of 1787 opened the doors to American progress such as the world had never seen. //

“That which America exemplifies in her Constitution and system of government is the most modern, and of any yet devised gives promise of being the most substantial and enduring.”

Coolidge, however, was careful to caution against trusting the Constitution to do more than it promised. It was not “a machine that would go of itself”—quite the contrary. Coolidge was well-aware of the fact that the Constitution imposed the duties of self-government upon every generation of Americans.

While “the men who founded our government” had built carefully and well, “we should be deluded if we supposed [our institutions] can be maintained without more of the same stern sacrifice offered in perpetuity,” he said. Free self-government requires sacrifice, requires recurrence to first principles, requires Americans to know, understand, and defend their way of life and form of government.