Pictured above is former Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter. I obtained the picture from an article in The New York Times, published on Tuesday, May 11, 2025. The article was headlined as follows (in the hardcopy version): "A Warning From Justice Souter: Too Much Ignorance Will Imperil Democracy."
Souter died on May 8th. His commentary highlights our collective ignorance about the way our government was designed to work. I am thinking that his statement on this topic, outlined in The Times' article, should be thought of as his "last words," his last legacy and gift to the people of the United States of America:
“An ignorant people can never remain a free people,” the justice said. “Democracy cannot survive too much ignorance.”
Not understanding how power is allocated among the three branches of government, he said, leaves a void that invites a strongman. After a crisis, he said, “one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power, and I will solve this problem.'"
That was four years before Donald J. Trump, as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination for the first time, said something strikingly similar: “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it." ...
“I don’t believe there is any problem of American politics and American public life which is more significant today than the pervasive civic ignorance of the Constitution of the United States and the structure of government.”
Let's take Justice Souter's admonitions seriously, and "study up" on what our Constitution provides. Let's understand the structure of our government, when our government is operating according to what the Constitution requires.
Abraham Lincoln, in The Gettysburg Address, summed up the essence of our government, as established by the Constitution, better than the Constitution itsself. As Lincoln said, we have inherited a government "of the people, by the people, for the people."
Most Americans do believe that our government should be "for the people," and not, for instance, for the billionaires, or the "oligarchy," or for those who happen to be personal friends of the president.
More important than that, though, is the second part of that tripartite explanation of how our government works - or is supposed to work.
Our government is more than "democracy," if "democracy" is taken to mean our ability to "vote" for our respresentatives.
Our government is supposed to be "by the people." (Not just "for" them). That means that if we want to maintain of system of democratic self-government, we need to get involved in government ourselves.
As Justice Souter said, that means, as a necessary and critical first step, that we must understand how our system of self-government is structured.
Study up!
And then take action. We, the people, are supposed to be "running the place."
Foundation of Freedom