What kind of freedom does a republic promise?

“Let America be America again,” wrote Langston Hughes. “Let it be the dream it used to be . . . / O, let America be America again— / The land that never has been yet— / And yet must be . . . /  America never was America to me, / And yet I swear this oath— / America will be! . . .”

For America to be America again, Hughes believed, Americans must do four things. They must remember the dream that used to be—and remember it rightly. They must understand that the dream has never been fully realized—and never can be. They must acknowledge that many have been excluded from that dream—and still are. And they must try to redeem the dream for themselves and their posterity—knowing full well that they are ultimately destined to fail. About all this, Hughes was right.

The dream of the righteous republic is the dream of a free people governing themselves for the common good. The Puritans imagined it as a city upon a hill knit together by Christian charity. The founders envisioned it as a Christian republic modeled on its Hebrew and Roman predecessors. Abraham Lincoln spoke of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Jane Addams dreamed that democracy would pervade the American way of life. Martin Luther King Jr.’s preferred metaphor was the beloved community. The notion of the righteous republic is an attempt to translate these dreams into the present era.