When Gasparo Contarini surveyed the political chaos of Italy’s city-states in the 1500s, he grew somber: “It is evident that almost every city in Italy, whether it is governed by a popular order or even by one of its own patrician citizens, eventually falls into the tyranny of some faction of its citizens.” Nevertheless, for Contarini, a lawmaker and diplomat, his beloved Republic of Venice offered an alternative: a dazzling and enduring model of self-government. “For this reason,” he said, “our ancestors decided that they had to try with all their might to prevent their Republic, splendidly organized and governed by excellent laws, from being afflicted by some such monster.”

The monster of political factions is stalking the American republic, as the Founders feared. Writing in The Federalist Papers, James Madison regarded the threat of factions — what we call tribalism — as “the mortal disease” of self-government.

Not since the era of the Vietnam War and the violence following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has the nation been so deeply and angrily divided. Never have Americans registered such levels of distrust — and disgust — with the core institutions shaping public life. “Trust in all of these institutions, all the pillars that hold up the edifice of American democracy and society, is crumbling,” writes Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker in American Breakdown. The collapse of trust, Baker observes, is fueling social unrest and political violence.

It was precisely this outcome that the Founders sought to avoid. Why do most forms of government collapse into social chaos, violence, and tyranny — and why do others endure? These were the questions that occupied the Founders in Philadelphia during the Constitutional Convention in 1787.