You might be right on that count although I hope you aren’t. I think we’ll have to see what happens in the next three years before saying for sure though.

A country doesn’t need a constitution. But a state without a constitution doesn’t exist. A constitution is just a set of rules that explains how state power is exercised. Sometimes, it goes something like “the king decides everything”. Sometimes, it goes “Parliament can make any law except one that a future parliament cannot unmake”. Sometimes, it goes “We, the people… [+4 pages of text]”. All of these are constitutions, even if they aren’t documents calling themselves “The Constitution™”

Yes

I will admit, that originally read “the Nazis destroyed the Third French Republic” before I changed it hastily.

I think this (or similar) scenarios come up a lot in other histories as well, though. I think an analogous point would be the enactment of “An Act Declaring England to be a Commonwealth” by the English Parliament and the preceding trial and execution of Charles I. Both were retroactively deemed illegal by the restored monarchy (obviously) since the former lacked royal asset on account of the latter, which was deemed regicide. But it still happened and I think it is indisputable that the old Kingdom of England indisputably ended when the English Parliament declared a republic, despite the monarchy’s later restoration. A state can end not just by being dissolved according to its own rules, but since a state only exists in the minds of the people and is not a tangible object, it can also cease to exist when people just stop paying attention to its laws.

People can declare anything they like but it doesn’t change the reality of history. And I know this is splitting hairs at this point and the argument is starting to lose its meaning. But people have also tried re-declaring the Roman Republic twice as well.

And speaking of which, there are also questions like whether the Roman Empire was the same state as the Roman Republic (arguably yes but also arguably no), and whether the Byzantine Empire was the same state as the Roman Republic (ditto). And these are questions I am wholly unqualified to answer with any meaningful depth.

Nobody denies that the USA is a “child of Europe[an colonisers]”. San Marino I concede has institutions which have been longer than those of the USA. But the current iteration of the Swiss Confederation is not (and I refer to the state institutions, not the concept of Switzerland). The Old Swiss Confederacy was destroyed by Napoleon when he invaded and replaced by a so-called “sister republic” which governed Switzerland until his he got rid of it a few years later. What exists today is only as old as the Congress of Vienna, perhaps a little older than that if you consider the time that Diet spent arguing over the constitution.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was my understanding that the Third Republic’s constitution was abrogated by the Constitutional Law of 1940 which gave all powers of the state to Philippe Pétain. Pétain then established the Vichy regime as a collaborationist government and decided against writing a new constitution for his regime, and that lasted until the German occupation forces decided to just take over the rest of France and rule it directly.

Constitutions don’t make a country. People do.

I agree completely with this which is why I said basically the same thing in my comment. I’m saying that while 250 years old for a country is not very old, going 250 years without suffering some kind of complete collapse in state institutions is pretty long.

Did you even read the comment? I said that the US’s government institutions are quite old, but the country is young. Yes, there has been a country named “Poland” around for much longer. But Poland has also governed by a succession of states, most not lasting very long (which as you probably know, is related to the actions of the other country you mention). I’m not saying that the idea of the US as a country is old, I’m saying its government institutions are older than usual.

Did you even read the god-damn comment?

The concept of the US as a country is not very old

it’s true that there has been a country called “France” for hundreds of years longer than the US

Yes, the notion of France as a country is older than the US. But the French Republic is not. The institutions change, the country endures. The US is a young country but its institutions are surprisingly old. That’s the whole fucking point.

No, I did not say that. I said most European states are very young by comparison. And I made it very clear that this is not the same as saying that the country is very young. The American state is very old; the country is very young. Read more carefully next time.

Edit: While I’m not going to smear an entire country’s education system based on the reading comprehension of one person, I do think that your accusation of “American exceptionalism” does get frighteningly close to (or is) an example of reactionary “nobody is special-ism”. Every country has interesting history tidbits and is special in its own way and I don’t think dismissing things with the thought-terminating label of “American exceptionalism” is particularly fair.

This screenshot gets reposted a lot, and I really am not a big fan of it, for two reasons:

1. A pub is not a country, and there are pubs in America that are older than America as well. Though this half of the planet only being known to dwellers of pub-having civilisations for a few hundred years seems to be rather much of a disadvantage.
2. The concept of the US as a country is not very old but to the titular Yank’s credit the US really is one of the oldest constitutional regimes in the world.

To elaborate on the second point, the US Constitution having been in continuous effect for nearly 250 years truly is rather impressive from a legal history perspective. While it’s true that there has been a country called “France” for hundreds of years longer than the US, the French state in 1789 when the current American state began is not the same state as the French state of 2025, while the American state is still the same in its design and structure as in 1789. States are created by constitutions and laws but the idea of a “country” is nebulous and ill-defined. A state can be destroyed and replaced by revolution but the country is still there. So when someone says the USA is one of the oldest states in the world, that is mostly true.

For reference:

• The Fifth French Republic began in 1958, or 1946 if you count the Fourth Republic. The previous French state (Vichy France) was destroyed by Nazi Germany.
• The Federal Republic of Germany came into existence upon the entry into force of its Basic Law in 1949. The previous German state was destroyed by the Allies in World War II.
• Spain’s constitutional regime only came into place after the death of Franco in 1975. The modern Spanish state came into existence in 1978 with the ratification of its constitution.
• The Russian state gained independence from the USSR only upon the latter’s dissolution in 1991. Even if you count the Russian SSR government under the Soviet Union, remember that the Russian Revolution which destroyed the Czarist state only began in 1917 in any case.
• The current Chinese state began in 1949 when Mao Zedong proclaimed its establishment in Tiananmen Square after kicking the Republic of China off the mainland. The Republic of China still exists in Taiwan which infamously is a cause of numerous discomforts between inhabitants of the two regions.
• The current Japanese state was essentially created by the Americans after they occupied Japan. While the post-war constitution calls itself an “amendment” to the Meiji Constitution, in any case Emperor Meiji dissolved the previous iteration of the Japanese state (the Tokugawa Shogunate) in 1889 anyway.

The one major country I can think of right now whose government institutions can legitimately claim to have been in continuous existence for longer than the US is probably the United Kingdom. I’d say 1660 is the starting point of that, since prior to then, Britain was a republic. 1707 might be a valid date as well since it’s when Scotland and England unified to form the United Kingdom. In either case that is older than 1789.

Edit: To the angry Europeans—before you comment, read the post carefully. I’m not talking about whether the US as a country is old. It most certainly is not. I’m saying that while the country is young, its institutions are comparatively old and have been in continuous operation for impressively long. No, they’re not the oldest in the world by a long shot (I think San Marino takes that title) either. The idea of a country is defined by whatever the people who live in it define it to be, but the states and regimes that govern it come and go and are defined by laws and constitutions. And the one governing the United States has been around for longer than most.