The following is excerpted from Ned Ryun’s new book, “Restoring Our Republic: The Making of the Republic and How We Reclaim It Before It's Too Late.”

Our American republic is a singular nation, the likes of which has never before been seen. History has seen and experienced aspects of this republic, from the time of the ancient Hebrews and Greeks, to the Romans and the English. The sum of traditions, practices, and beliefs drawn from those civilizations, the lessons learned, all informed what this nation would become. These various threads of the rule of law and separation of powers and the proper relation between the state and man were all drawn together to form the fabric of a new society and nation.

But there has never been a nation like this republic in the history of the world ... these United States have become the envy of the world, providing the greatest amount of freedom and opportunity to the greatest number of people, more than any other nation throughout history. Its status in the world, its exceptionalism, its freedom, its opportunities, are not the products of chance. They did not just happen. They are the result of very intentional and distinct decisions made centuries ago.

Consider that in the age of the divine right of kings, our young republic set another course: there would be no king, no powers concentrated in the hands of the few, no belief that the king was the law. The law would be king in this new nation. It would be a government of, by, and for the people, not people for the government, nor man for the state. Now with this republic, the state was to be for the man: an advocate, defender, guardian, and steward of all the natural rights of the people as given to them by their Creator.

The men who founded this republic were optimistic realists. They were deeply realistic about human nature with its multitude of flaws and shortcomings, yet they were optimistic that they could in fact, working with imperfect human nature, create a government that protected all of the God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Faced with the challenge of protecting and advancing these rights while creating a government strong enough to defend those rights from both foreign and domestic threats, the Founders infused the nascent republic with transcendent values that would stand the test of time. ... Yet in the centuries that have passed since our founding, we have drifted from those principles, intentionally and, sadly, through ignorance as well. Many know that these principles exist, and we can see vestiges of them, yet, as Yeats writes, we seem to drift in ever-widening gyres from our beginnings; the “falcon does not hear the falconer.” Worse yet, it seems now that the best truly do “lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”

This great drifting began in earnest at the dawn of the 20th century with the rise of the Progressives, whose beliefs about human nature and the role of government and power differed greatly from those of the Founders. ... Whereas the Founders were optimistic realists, the Progressives were utopian statists, deeply naive about human nature and the dangers of concentrated power. They mistakenly sought utopia in a fallen world, then compounded that mistake by concentrating tremendous power in the hands of a relatively few, deeply imperfect, human beings. In their minds, human nature was not inherently evil but was perfectible. Unelected, educated elites were to fill the envisioned Administrative State, separated from politics and elected officials and the accountability that the people’s representatives bring, as much as possible. The walls separating the powers of government were knocked down and power consolidated to advance progress.

Washington now has a whiff of Versailles about it, run by a ruling class of both parties that are detached from, and filled with, great disdain for the mere “peasants,” the “irredeemable deplorables” in the outer world. This ruling class, bolstered and funded by its cronies and special interests, has rigged the system of government to serve its own interests, not those of the American people. Even more troubling, the unelected bureaucrats, funded by the people, placed in power to supposedly serve the people, now consider themselves above the people. Elections are merely dates on a calendar that are quaint notions of a representative republic, celebrations of a relic of government that no longer truly exists. Elections come and go, but the Administrative State and those who fill it remain.

This Ruling Class and Administrative State now run a system of government far removed from the people, but even more importantly, not working on behalf of the people. It works against the people, taxing them at levels far above and beyond what our Founders would have ever imagined, putting the weight of an incredibly heavy regulatory state on the shoulders of the American people, striking trade deals and implementing foreign policy that sell out the interests of Americans every day.

Today, elected officials can operate in Washington, D.C., bolstered and protected by collaborators in the media industry, and discuss coercive socialism as though such ideas were perfectly normal instead of the destructive ones they truly are. In this world detached from reality, people can openly propose, and defend, infanticide and not be ostracized from society. The idea that government is to protect the basic rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, and take none of them away, is an idea best left to the pages of old history books. The ideas of natural rights, the true purpose of government to protect persons and property, and just and voluntary associations are ideas that are ignored and dismissed.

Yet civilizations and societies come apart at the seams when there is no rule of law, no respect for human life and human dignity and property. When society no longer understands and embraces these principles, then all that a people are left with are competing opinions based on emotion and the latest thought they read on social media. But society cannot stand that tension for long: people desire peace and prosperity, and the tension must be resolved. Opinions must compete with other opinions, might becomes the determiner of right, and one set of opinions must win out. Those opinions must become the new value proposition for a nation, and those who do not agree will be compelled, by force, to accept the new standards of truth.

We were founded upon transcendent truths: truths that stand outside the changing whims of men and women, truths that are immovable and that stand the test of time. These truths comprise the rule of law, individual rights, and voluntary association, and they are the essence of Western Civilization. They made us the greatest nation the world has ever seen. But now, the important questions are: “Can we return to our founding principles? Can there be a reformation and a renewal?” The answer to both: “Not unless people know where we’ve come from, because to not know our past is to be blind.” We cannot know where we are to go unless we know from where we came. It is only in understanding the past and these values that we can once again renew our republic.