I’m used to the French numbering their republics. When I read of the second World War, I recollect Hitler’s Third Reich. But I’m not used to looking at my own country as a series of republics. The article I read defined four American republics by dates:
First Republic (1776-1788)
Second Republic (1787-1865)
Third Republic (1865-1910)
Fourth Republic (1937- ) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/05/ryan-mcmaken/we-are-living-in-the-fourth-american-republic/
If the author is right – and he may well be – I haven’t noticed the change because I have lived only in the Fourth Republic – yet there are tantalizing bits of family history that support the idea. My grandmother, first generation American, born to Swedish immigrants, removed a “C tract” from the place with a handwritten letter – the reply was signed by a representative of Franklin D. Roosevelt. I suspect that the government in the mid-thirties was closer to the people. My father told of his time on the survey ship Hannibal, working the coast of Venezuela. To his understanding, the work was funded by Standard Oil. At the time, wages for an apprentice Seaman were $21 per month – yet he and his compatriots were paid $70 (or a little more – my memory leaves me certain that it was 70 something, but unsure that it was $78). Essentially, with private funding, a Seaman second was paid the same as a first-class petty officer. Our country operated differently in 1937. The author may be correct.
The 1776 to 1788 Republic was definitely different than its successor – it was a confederation by definition, and then, with the Constitution accepted turned into “A republic, if you can keep it.”
The second American Republic is listed as 1787 to 1865. Okay, the war between the states made it clear that states could not secede from the union. In Texas v. White (1869), the Supreme Court ruled that Texas has still been a US state, still in the Union, despite Texas’ secession. The rules may not have changed during the 1860’s, but Union guns and the Supreme Court resolved the issue of secession and state’s rights that brought the Confederacy so many West Point officers.
The 1910 date fits with the beginnings of the Progressive Era – Teddy Roosevelt had brought in the National Parks – the later progressives brought in the income tax, a modernized method of conscription (remember, a lot of our Montana founders were draft dodger from both the Union and the Confederacy), creation of the FBI (J. Edgar Hoover was a Librarian who transferred in from the Library of Congress). I can understand that date.
1937 fits in with the New Deal and Franklin Roosevelt. I can see that. You might enjoy the Mises article – https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/05/ryan-mcmaken/we-are-living-in-the-fourth-american-republic/
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