Is it too late to save our Republic?

 History has not been kind in its review of past experiments by Homo sapiens in self-governing.  Whatever the heights reached, all past experiments have collapsed. 

•   Those that were based on the personal power of an individual failed when that person died.
• Those based on an ideal of any sort, failed when those ideals were abandoned in practice if not in words.

Students of various concentrations will focus on different elements of any society, even as they agree that there is "trouble in Paradise."  Those who study human nature will suggest one of many as the major reason for decline.  Those who come from a study of the Bible will agree in part but disagree in still another part, while those who study politics and governance will come up with still another major factor.

Who is right?

I don't know... absolutely.  I strongly suspect that the most accurate answer is likely to be an amalgam of all of those raised, plus some not yet discussed (at least to our knowledge).

But I have a suggestion for a prime "trigger" that guaranteed the collapse of our Republic.  And I place the blame on a historical hero of the United States of America:  

                                            Abraham Lincoln!

Surprised?  Yeah... me too.  But hear me out.  There are two absolute truths that contribute to the inevitability of the collapse of the United States of America:

1. The inherent limitations of a Republic to remain responsive to the citizenry, and
2. the inherent nature of man to never relinquish control once acquired.

Limitations of a Republic:

In November of 2013, Professor Donald Livingston, Professor Emeritus at Emory University, gave a speech at the University of Virginia on Republicanism (the government form, not the political ideology), David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln.  That speech was broadcast on C-SPAN.  Now, most of us have had ideas come to us suddenly and the proverbial light bulb appears.  But...this speech caused flashbulbs of incredible brilliance going off continually.  Never before had I even considered the effect of our form of government on the current status of political representation.

I had been taught that our government was not a pure democracy but a Republic.  But the differences between a pure democracy and a republic were never a matter of intense or critical study.  Nor was there ever a study of the advantages and/or limitations of a republican form of government.

Had this been, and does it continue to be, a missing element is our Social and Governmental studies?  To answer that question completely requires a reading and study of commentaries on the subject by David Hume and Thomas Jefferson.  Or...for the equivalent of a Cliff Notes summary you might want to watch Prof. Livingston's speech on C-SPAN (  http://www.c-span.org/video/?316075-1/ThomasJeffers   ) which would reduce what otherwise would take months of study to about an hour of video.  The substance of what stuck with me from watching and listening to Professor Livingston I present below...and I am confident that substance will get your attention and initiate thought and debate.

The general view of republican governance was one where size mattered, if you were going to have representative rule.  If you get too big, you lose representative responsiveness.  Jefferson's vision was one of additional republics being formed as both population and area grew, maintaining the people's control of government.  The republics would then band together in a Commonwealth for cooperative defense and trade.  Up until the Civil War, succession was often discussed and seen as a legitimate evolving action for growth.  It wasn't until Abraham Lincoln reflecting the governmental philosophy of Thomas Hobbs, determined, by force, that the southern states could not secede, and the "indivisible" term became the norm when speaking about the republic. Jefferson's view of the various republics being the political unit, to one where people became the political unit and control was to be centralized.  The French Revolution resulted in the formation of the French Republic, the first modern large modern state republic, looking to the individual as the political unit.

No one comments on the mutually exclusive concepts of republican government as laid out by Jefferson and then by Lincoln (following the Hobbs model), and yet the significance and effects of this clash on our lives is long standing and enormous. The two approaches are incompatible, as Livingstone states.

At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, the House of Representatives elected one Representative for every 30,000 people.  But in 1911 the number of Representatives was capped at 435.  The result is that today there is one Representative for every 720,000 people.   

If the 720,000 to 1 ratio were applied to the original 13 states, the House would be composed of 5 members, and 8 states would have no representatives at all.

On the other hand, to keep the same 30,000 to 1 ratio today, the House would have 10,500 members.

We have outgrown our ability to functionally self-govern.  The result is the gradual buildup of awareness on the part of the public that "their" government is no longer "theirs!"  Add that to the fact that over time those involved in governing become intoxicated with their power and influence and lose all instinct to hide their disrespect and disdain for those who elect them, and the awareness of loss of both freedom and benefit from the government becomes a growing visceral anger in the citizenry.  

The Human DNA-based desire to retain power benefit once achieved:

There is no proof that Abraham Lincoln knew about the conceptual and operational limitations of a Republic.  And there seems much to suggest that he was not a power-hungry person ready to sacrifice others to his personal goals, but was rather a person who cared about others and would have earnestly denied being "power-hungry."

But he was surrounded by elected officials who certainly saw the possibility of the southern states breaking away and forming their own Republic as a loss of power (and certainly financial opportunities).  On his part, it is arguable that he would see the formation of a southern republic as a sign that he had failed as President to "protect" the "country" as he viewed it.

His (and the northern states) success in preventing the formation of a new Republic cemented the ultimate destruction of the United States of America.  It is now too large to govern on the basis of citizen control, and that is proven by the current behavior of the National Government in dictating to citizens rather than looking to those citizens for direction.

That the argument for placing the burden of History on Abraham Lincoln for the ultimate demise of the United States of America.