From Shyam Bhatia
The United States marked the 250th Anniversary of this Fourth of July the Declaration of Independence, a milestone that invites celebration, reflection and debate in equal measure. Fireworks, parades and patriotic ceremonies commemorated the birth of the Republic, but the Anniversary also posed a deeper question: how has a nation born in revolution preserved its constitutional order through civil war, economic depression, world wars, social upheaval and today’s fierce political divisions?
Few political documents have exercised greater global influence than the American Constitution. Drafted in Philadelphia in 1787 and entering into force two years later, it remains the world’s oldest written national constitution still in operation. At fewer than 8,000 words, it established not merely the framework for governing a new nation but a philosophy of limited government that has influenced constitutional thinking far beyond America’s shores.
Its framers had fought a war against what they regarded as arbitrary rule and were determined that no future president—or any other branch of government—should wield unchecked power. Their solution was not simply democracy but constitutional democracy: a system in which authority would be divided, balanced and restrained.
The intellectual architect of much of that thinking was James Madison, later America’s fourth President. In The Federalist No. 51, he offered perhaps the clearest explanation of why constitutions need institutional safeguards rather than good intentions alone:
“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”
He followed it with another observation that has echoed through constitutional history:
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
Madison’s insight was deceptively simple. Governments, like individuals, are capable of abusing power. Rather than relying upon the virtue of political leaders, the Constitution distributed authority among Congress, the President and the judiciary, ensuring that each institution could restrain the others. The objective was not to eliminate political conflict but to prevent the concentration of power.
The philosophical foundations of the republic had been laid a decade earlier in the Declaration of Independence, drafted principally by Thomas Jefferson. Few sentences have had greater influence on democratic thought than his assertion:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
History, of course, exposed the gap between aspiration and reality. Slavery survived for almost another century. Women remained excluded from political participation for generations, while Native Americans suffered dispossession and violence. Yet Jefferson’s words also supplied later generations with the constitutional language through which those injustices could be challenged.
That capacity for self-correction has been one of the Constitution’s greatest strengths. Unlike many nations whose constitutions have been discarded or rewritten after periods of upheaval, the United States has relied upon amendment, judicial interpretation and democratic debate to adapt its constitutional framework to changing circumstances.
Its influence has extended well beyond North America. When India’s Constituent Assembly met after Independence to draft the Constitution of the world’s largest democracy, it examined constitutional systems from the United States, Britain, Canada, Ireland and Australia. While India adopted the Westminster parliamentary model rather than the American presidency, it drew inspiration from the United States in areas such as federalism, judicial review and the protection of fundamental rights.
Dr B.R. Ambedkar, chairman of the Drafting Committee, admired the American commitment to constitutional safeguards while adapting those principles to India’s far greater social, linguistic and religious diversity. The result was not an imitation of the American Constitution but a distinctly Indian document founded on the same conviction: governments themselves must remain subject to the law.
The institution that has done most to uphold that principle in the United States is the Supreme Court. Although mentioned only briefly in the Constitution itself, the Court gradually assumed a role that the framers could scarcely have imagined—as the final interpreter of the nation’s founding document and the ultimate referee in disputes between the executive, the legislature and the states.
In 1803, Chief Justice John Marshall established that authority in the landmark case of Marbury v. Madison, declaring:
“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”
Those words established the doctrine of judicial review, empowering the Court to invalidate legislation or executive action that conflicts with the Constitution. The principle later influenced constitutional practice in many democracies, including India, where judicial review has enabled the Supreme Court to emerge as one of the principal guardians of constitutional government and fundamental rights.
Over the next two centuries, the Court would become the arena in which many of America’s defining constitutional struggles were fought—not only over the powers of government but over the meaning of liberty itself.
The Supreme Court’s record has not always been one of constitutional triumph. Like the nation it serves, it has reflected the prejudices and divisions of its age.
In 1857, the Court delivered one of the most infamous judgments in American history. In Dred Scott v. Sandford, it ruled that people of African descent could not be citizens of the United States and that Congress lacked the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories. Rather than settling the slavery question, the decision deepened the divisions that soon erupted into the Civil War.
Yet the Constitution also demonstrated a remarkable capacity for renewal. Following the Union victory, the Reconstruction Amendments fundamentally reshaped the republic. Most significant was the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, which declared:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States…”
Those 29 words would become central to some of the most important constitutional disputes of the twenty-first century.
Nearly a century later, the Supreme Court confronted another defining issue: racial segregation.
In 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered a unanimous judgment that overturned the doctrine of “separate but equal,” declaring simply:
“Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
The ruling became one of the defining moments of the modern civil rights movement. More importantly, it illustrated an enduring truth about the American Constitution. While the text itself changes only rarely, its interpretation evolves as society changes. The Constitution endures because each generation is required to interpret its principles in the light of contemporary realities.
Perhaps the clearest demonstration that no one stands above the Constitution came two decades later during the Watergate scandal.
In United States v. Nixon (1974), the Supreme Court unanimously ordered President Richard Nixon to surrender tape recordings sought by prosecutors investigating the break-in at Democratic Party headquarters. Nixon complied and resigned days later, facing almost certain impeachment.
The decision reaffirmed one of the central principles of American constitutionalism: the rule of law applies equally to every citizen, including the President.
No recent president has generated as many constitutional disputes as Donald Trump. His administrations have repeatedly brought the executive into conflict with the judiciary over immigration, elections, executive authority and the limits of presidential power.
Among the most contentious issues has been birthright citizenship.
President Trump argued that children born in the United States to certain non-citizen parents should not automatically become American citizens. Supporters maintained that the Fourteenth Amendment had long been interpreted too broadly. Opponents argued that its language was explicit and that more than 150 years of constitutional practice supported their interpretation.
The ensuing litigation has become an important illustration of how the American constitutional system is designed to function. Presidents may propose sweeping changes, but they cannot place themselves above constitutional scrutiny. Federal courts blocked implementation while the legal challenges proceeded through the judicial system.
More recently, the Supreme Court has considered procedural questions arising from these challenges, particularly the circumstances in which lower federal courts may issue nationwide injunctions against executive actions. The broader constitutional question—whether a president may restrict birthright citizenship by executive order—has yet to receive a final judicial determination.
Whatever the eventual outcome, the litigation has reinforced an essential feature of the American system. Constitutional controversies are resolved not by presidential decree but through an independent judiciary interpreting the Constitution. That process may be slow and politically contentious, but it reflects precisely the balance of powers that Madison and his colleagues intended when they framed the Constitution nearly 240 years ago.
The relationship between the executive and the judiciary has rarely been entirely comfortable. Presidents have criticised judicial decisions, while judges have often been accused of venturing into political territory. Yet this tension is not a constitutional defect. It is an essential feature of the American system.
Madison never imagined that government would operate harmoniously. On the contrary, he believed liberty would be safest when competing institutions restrained one another. Congress would legislate, presidents would govern, courts would interpret the Constitution, and elections would provide peaceful opportunities for change. No institution would enjoy unlimited authority, and no political victory would be permanent.
John Adams captured the principle in words that have lost none of their force over the past two and a half centuries:
“We are a government of laws, and not of men.”
For India, America’s constitutional experience continues to offer valuable lessons, though never a model to be copied uncritically. The framers of the Indian Constitution borrowed ideas from many democratic traditions while adapting them to India’s own history, diversity and political realities.
India’s Constitution is far longer and more detailed than its American counterpart. It reflects the challenges of governing a vast, multilingual and multi-religious society emerging from colonial rule and Partition. Yet despite their different origins, both constitutions are founded on the same essential proposition: Despite their different origins, both constitutions are founded on the same principle: that public power is exercised under the Constitution, not above it.
India’s Supreme Court has reinforced that principle through the Basic Structure doctrine, under which even Parliament cannot amend the Constitution in ways that destroy its essential character. Although developed independently, the doctrine reflects the same belief that constitutional principles must stand above temporary political majorities.
Ambedkar himself recognised that even the finest constitution would ultimately depend upon those entrusted with implementing it. Addressing the Constituent Assembly in November 1949, he offered a warning that remains remarkably relevant:
“Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated.”
That observation speaks as directly to contemporary India as Madison’s reflections on checks and balances speak to the United States.
The constitutional questions confronting both democracies are different in their details but strikingly similar in their underlying themes. How should executive power be restrained? What role should courts play in resolving political disputes? How can the rights of minorities be protected while respecting the will of electoral majorities? These are not uniquely American questions. They are questions confronting constitutional democracies across the world.
In recent years, constitutional courts have assumed an increasingly prominent role in adjudicating disputes over elections, civil liberties, executive authority and the rule of law. Their judgments frequently provoke political controversy, yet they also demonstrate that democracy depends upon more than periodic elections. It requires institutions capable of enforcing constitutional limits, even when doing so is unpopular.
The American experience suggests that the strength of a constitution lies not in preventing political conflict but in providing peaceful means of resolving it. That may be its most enduring lesson after 250 years.
The United States enters its third century at a time of deep political division. Debates over immigration, abortion, gun rights, race, federal authority and the scope of executive power have exposed profound differences within American society. Trust in public institutions has declined, elections have become increasingly contentious and political discourse is often marked by suspicion rather than consensus.
Yet the remarkable feature of the American experiment is not the existence of conflict but the constitutional machinery for managing it. The framers never expected agreement to prevail; they expected disagreement to endure. Their achievement was to create institutions capable of containing political conflict within a framework of law.
For two and a half centuries, that framework has been tested repeatedly—by civil war, economic depression, world wars, racial conflict, terrorism and bitterly contested elections. On each occasion, the Constitution has come under strain. Yet, despite its imperfections and the failures of those entrusted to uphold it, the constitutional order has survived.
Its durability has depended not upon the wisdom of individual leaders but upon the resilience of institutions prepared to enforce constitutional limits. That remains its greatest strength.
For India, which adopted its own Constitution in 1950, the American anniversary is more than a historical celebration. It is an opportunity to reflect upon the enduring importance of constitutional government, judicial independence and the rule of law. Although the two countries have chosen different constitutional paths, both continue to confront the same fundamental challenge: how to balance popular mandates with constitutional restraint.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that governments derive:
“their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Two hundred and fifty years later, those words remain both an aspiration and a challenge.
No democracy has ever fully realised the ideals upon which it was founded. The United States has repeatedly fallen short of its own declaration that “all men are created equal.” Yet it has also demonstrated an unusual capacity for self-correction. Slavery was abolished through constitutional amendment. Segregation was dismantled through legislation and judicial decisions. Presidents have been held accountable by the courts. Successive generations have reinterpreted the Constitution without abandoning it.
That may ultimately be the republic’s greatest achievement. America’s enduring legacy lies not in avoiding constitutional crises but in confronting them through law rather than force, through independent institutions rather than individual leaders, and through an abiding belief that no one—not even the President—is above the Constitution.
As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of their independence, they are marking far more than a declaration signed in Philadelphia in 1776. They are celebrating the survival of one of history’s most ambitious constitutional experiments—one that has influenced democracies across the world and continues to remind democracies everywhere that the true measure of a constitution is not how it works in times of consensus, but how it restrains power in times of conflict.
