The Constitution. The thing that separates the American system from all others. The single distinguising factor from all the other societies that failed.
Define success and failure. America tore itself apart in less than 100 years. The nation we have today barely resembles the nation that existed when Hamilton was alive in anything but name and half-assed reference to the Constitution in the course of political discourse and rhetoric.
America failed to protect its people from corporation until the Wobblies and others fought for reform.
It fails to uphold any principles that I can determine with any regularity and there's an argument to be made that the People no longer have any say in so much as the election of their rulers.
Then there's the economic collapse we're headed toward.
I don't give a damn whether this or any other nation-state as such 'succeeds' or 'fails' if success is defined as stagnation and failure to adapt to changing times or as the simple preservation of a name or the deign of a piece of cloth or approximate borders. I care about society's success or failure when it comes to doing what is right and always striving to better the world. If we could solve all this nations economic and social ills by splitting it up three ways, giving the new nations wholly new names, and replacing the Constitution with something demonstrably better, then why should anyone object out of some idiotic loyalty to a name, a scrap of cloth, or some vague concept of the nation-state as it is?
I claim no loyalty to this or any other nation-state. I am loyal to my principles and values and I support this or any other nation/civilization/society/what-have-you insomuch- and only insomuch- as it upholds thoser principles and values and acts accordingly. That's what it means t have principles, you see, as opposed to blind patriotism.