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Whose Constitution Do We Actually Live In?
Explore how unwritten symbolic texts like the Gettysburg Address and the Northwest Ordinance shape constitutional law.
Examines how unwritten symbolic texts help resolve ambiguities in the written American Constitution, focusing on six historical documents. Akhil Reed Amar discusses the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, the Northwest Ordinance, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Brown v. Board of Education, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech. He concludes that the modern American constitutional order is defined fundamentally by Lincoln and Reconstruction rather than by the original framers Madison and Jefferson.
Referenced inYale Law School Open Course · LAW-CONST1 (2014)
Lecture Guide
- 1Unwritten symbolic texts help fill gaps and resolve ambiguities in the written Constitution.
- 2The Declaration of Independence's principle of no taxation without representation supports judicial doctrines like McCulloch v. Maryland and the dormant commerce clause.
- 3The Northwest Ordinance served as a blueprint for westward expansion and anti-colonial governance.
- 4Lincoln's Gettysburg Address reinterpreted the nation's founding equality, which was later codified in the Fourteenth Amendment's principle of birth equality.
Proofs, Examples & Demos
Assumed Background