We the people : a history of the U.S. Constitution

Lepore, Jill, 1966-2025

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Summary

In this contribution to American history spanning three tumultuous centuries - beginning in the 1780s and concluding with the Supreme Court era of Chief Justice Roberts - Jill Lepore notes that the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971, the same year that conservatives invented a theory of constitutional theory of 'originalism' which has since provided the bulwark of reactionary thought in America. Suffocating the very process of the Amendment was not the original intention of the Founding Fathers, who believed that the Amendment itself was so foundational to the American constitutional tradition that it was to be used as a self-regulatory mechanism to bring about necessary political changes. In reality, the reverse has occurred. In this panoramic work of American history, Lepore argues that the Supreme Court has usurped the power of the amendment.