OUR WALL IS NOT IMPREGNABLE

I have been thinking a lot lately about the problem historians have wrestled with forever, why civilizations and nation-states rise and fall. Specifically: Is the United States still on the rise, or has it begun its fall? Today is the first anniversary of the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, and the U.S. Constitution. This is an appropriate time to reflect on this question.

No civilization/state has been studied more than the Roman empire. Lasting some two thousand years, it had a definite rise and clear-cut fall. The "rise" issue among historians is not controversial, but the "fall" one is, very much. Even during the time of the decline and fall, writers mused at length about the causes of it all. Ever since the fall, there had been wide agreement on what happened, but much disagreement on why it happened.

Actually, the Roman empire did not decline and fall altogether. In the Fourth Century C.E., the empire was divided and the Emperor Constantine transformed an old Greek trading town into a magnificent city called Constantinople, as the seat of the eastern half. It soon became the largest, most beautiful, and richest city in the western world. Constantinople was on the tip of a peninsula. As Rome was being overrun time and again by invading tribes, the emperors at Constantinople constructed the greatest defensive wall system in the world across the neck of the peninsula. It was designed to be impregnable.

The walls ran for several miles. There was a thirty foot moat, an outer wall, in intermediate wall, then a high wall with 90 sixty-foot towers. The walls were made of white limestone decorated with red bricks. There are still large remnants of the walls standing. Walls ringed the entire city, but those on the land side were the most elaborate.

The people of Constantinople believed their immense walls were impregnable. They rested secure behind them in the belief that no invader of any size or strength could ever break through. Indeed, many a would-be invader turned away just at the sight of the gleaming and incredibly formidable walls. From time to time, numerous attackers actually tried their hands at charging the walls, to no avail. Even relatively few defenders could fight off waves of attacks. Century after  century, the people of Constantinople rested secure behind their incomparable defenses.

Invaders did get into the city, once, in 1204, in the Fourth Crusade when the crusaders decided it would be easier to loot the fabulous wealth of Constantinople than to risk death in the Holy Land. That time they came in by sea, into the harbor. They did not attack the land walls. The eastern Roman empire (aka Byzantine Empire) survived this interruption and eventually restored its old rule, safe and secure behind its great walls.

In the Fifteenth Century, a new power arose in the region of Asia Minor and the Balkans, the Ottoman Turks. In 1453, the Ottoman sultan, Mehmet II, decided he would try his hand at capturing Constantinople, still the greatest and strongest city in the world. On April 6, he laid siege to the city. His forces outnumbered the defenders at least five to one. Over and over his men attacked the great walls, only to be repulsed every time, at bloody loss. The sultan actually contemplated calling off the assault. However, he had a "super weapon" that the defenders did not have. It was a huge bronze cannon (and many smaller ones), thirty feet long that fired enormous "shells" of marble. It was so heavy it could be moved only by sixty oxen. Day after day, the Turkish cannons fired and pieces of the walls crumbled. Still the massive walls held. After seven weeks, on the verge of withdrawal, the sultan decided on one last all-out assault with all the cannon power available. On May 29, the cannons blew a hole into a weak point of the walls and the Turks flooded into the city. The mighty walls fell to the cannon fire. Gunpowder, and guns, were new in Europe. These were things the builders of the walls never imagined. In the end, the supposedly impregnable walls of Constantinople failed because the defenders failed to keep up with the new technology of the day. 

The Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453 was the end of the Roman Empire. For a thousand years the people of Constantinople had lived in the confidence that their city was safe from invaders because of its fantastic defensive walls. In the end it was a false security.

Now, to the point of this wordy history lesson. Our "wall" is the U.S. Constitution. For more than two centuries we Americans have lived behind our wall of security believing that nothing could endanger us because the Constitution would always protect us. We had a terrible trial of that in the Civil War, but the Constitution held just as the great walls of Constantinople had held for a thousand years. 

We had a second assault on the Constitution one year ago today. The President of the United States incited a violent mob to attack the Capitol in order to overthrow the Constitution of the United States. The president and his followers wanted to overturn a legal and legitimate election in order to keep the losing candidate in power. The mob broke in and rampaged through those hallowed halls looking to do violence to the representatives of the people. The president refused to go but retreated to the White House to watch in glee on television. Four hours later, the National Guard arrived and restored order.

This was not the end of the story. Quite the contrary. All across the country anti-democratic forces are making assaults on the Constitutional process. Most Republicans continue to believe Trump actually won the election and the mob attack was nothing of importance. A large minority of Americans are willing to overthrow our Constitution in order to hold power.

The "wall" of the Constitution has been violently attacked and is still being attacked. The future of our constitutional democracy is at stake. The wall will stand only if a majority of the American people arise to defend it. The walls of Constantinople failed the people, after a thousand years. Whether the wall of the Constitution will save the democracy of the American people after only a couple of centuries is the existential issue facing our country today.