Constitution Archives - Public Seminar

Democracy

A Republic, If We Can Afford It

Our Republic depends on both economic stability and civic participation

November 6, 2025 • by Larry Schwartz

When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government the delegates had created. His reply—“A republic, if you can keep it”—was no mere quip from an aging sage. It was a warning that republics are fragile, rare, and never self-sustaining. What Franklin implied was that ...

Podcast

To The Constitution, With Love

Episode 63: A conversation with historian Mary Ellen Curtain about her book She Changed the Nation: Barbara Jordan’s Life and Legacy in Black Politics

November 20, 2024 • by Claire Potter

In the summer of 1974, I was glued to the television for most of the day. For the first time in my life, my parents didn’t insist that I shut it off, go outside—do something useful. That was Watergate Summer, the weeks that a national drama played out all day on ...

Politics

Could Donald Trump Pardon Himself?

Why the U.S. constitution doesn’t give the president a “GET OUT OF JAIL FREE” card

October 4, 2023 • by Gary J. Schmitt and Jeffrey K. Tulis

In the event of a 2024 reelection, the question arises: Can Trump pardon himself? Constitutionally, this issue exists within a gray area....

Activism

Why Activists Matter to Constitutional Change

Beyond textual loopholes: the case of the Thirteenth Amendment

February 2, 2022 • by Sam Klug

n the immediate aftermath of the Thirteenth Amendment’s passage, African American activists, Reconstruction legislators, and the formerly enslaved initially hoped it would be broadly applied. ...

Why Activists Matter to Constitutional Change

Politics

Democratizing Movements v. Constitutional Politics

An introduction to this week’s issue on the future of constitutionalism and democracy

October 13, 2021 • by James Miller

The idea for a symposium in Public Seminar on “Constitutional Politics” grows out of a two-day conference on Liberalism & Democracy: Past, Present, Prospects. I organized these conversations at the New School in February 2019, in collaboration with Helena Rosenblatt, a historian at City University of New York Graduate Center. One of the key participants was Aziz Rana of Cornell University, ...

Constitutional Politics

Chile Tries to Write a New Constitution

Progressives in the nation’s Constitutional Convention see an opportunity for creating a more just society

October 13, 2021 • by Jennifer M. Piscopo

In a national referendum held on October 25, 2020, nearly 80 percent of Chileans agreed that the country should have a new constitution, to be written at a convention attended by specially elected delegates. The vote was the climactic result of weeks of paralyzing demonstrations in 2019, as students, feminists, workers, Indigenous peoples, pensioners, and thousands of others had taken to the streets to protest economic and social injustice. With resounding majorities choosing change, Chileans ...

Constitutional Politics

Imagining a Post-Constitutional Political Culture

Amid a racial uprising and calls for “political revolution,” why pretend that our political disputes turn on the “best” reading of an eighteenth-century text, the Constitution?

October 12, 2021 • by Ryan Doerfler and Samuel Moyn

Aziz Rana’s genealogy of American constitutional veneration overturns the conventional wisdom, not merely about the chronology, but also about the reasons for this worshipful attitude towards a document drafted in the late eighteenth century. At the same time, his forthcoming book, Rise of the Constitution, is politically explosive: for it ...

Imagining a Post-Constitutional Political Culture

Politics

That We Love Our Country More

In defeat, Liz Cheney seizes the high ground and declares war on the Party of Trump

May 12, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ Nobody—much less Cheney herself—imagined that there would be a last-minute deal that would keep her in the Republican leadership. And there wasn’t. Within 20 minutes of the Republican caucus gaveling in its regular 9:00 AM Wednesday meeting, Liz Cheney was removed from leadership by a quick voice vote. Virginia Foxx (NC-5) ...

Democracy

On Treason: A Citizen’s Guide to the Law

An excerpt exploring the meaning of treason and the present-day prevalence of alleging treason

February 25, 2021 • by Carlton F.W. Larson

As a professor of American constitutional law and legal history, I regularly answer questions for the media about legal issues. But for the most part, those calls tended to focus on constitutional law more generally and on other subjects I have written about, such as the Second Amendment or the ...

On Treason: A Citizen’s Guide to the Law

Democracy

Did the Militia Group that Planned to Kidnap the Michigan Governor Commit Treason?

They stand accused of hoping to trigger “a civil war leading to societal collapse”

October 14, 2020 • by Carlton F.W. Larson

On Wednesday, October 7, the Michigan Attorney General filed 19 state felony charges against seven men who are accused of being members, or associates of, an anti-government militia group calling itself the Michigan Wolverine Watchmen (Wolverines is also the name of the University of Michigan football team). The alleged militia members ...

Did the Militia Group that Planned to Kidnap the Michigan Governor Commit Treason?

North America

Mike Pompeo’s Originalist Foreign Policy

The Commission’s report gives ammunition to partisans who aim to weaken core constitutional protections within the United States

July 23, 2020 • by Duncan Hosie

This justification is a pretext. While pretending to strengthen protection for human rights abroad, the Commission’s report gives ammunition to partisans who aim to weaken core constitutional protections within the United States. Pompeo and the Commission’s report embrace an “originalist” vision of America’s founding. Originalism is a doctrine in constitutional law ...

Mike Pompeo’s Originalist Foreign Policy

Democracy

The U.S. Needs to Protect Free and Fair Elections

Here’s how

June 23, 2020 • by Katie Scofield

When eight states and Washington, D.C., all held elections facing the dual challenges of Covid-19 and demonstrations protesting anti-Black violence prompted -- this time -- by the killing of George Floyd, we learned that cumbersome voting systems have become more fragile than ever. Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and Maryland were unable to ...

Constitution

A Republic, If We Can Afford It

Our Republic depends on both economic stability and civic participation

To The Constitution, With Love

Episode 63: A conversation with historian Mary Ellen Curtain about her book She Changed the Nation: Barbara Jordan’s Life and Legacy in Black Politics

Could Donald Trump Pardon Himself?

Why the U.S. constitution doesn’t give the president a “GET OUT OF JAIL FREE” card

Why Activists Matter to Constitutional Change

Beyond textual loopholes: the case of the Thirteenth Amendment

Democratizing Movements v. Constitutional Politics

An introduction to this week’s issue on the future of constitutionalism and democracy

Chile Tries to Write a New Constitution

Progressives in the nation’s Constitutional Convention see an opportunity for creating a more just society

Imagining a Post-Constitutional Political Culture

Amid a racial uprising and calls for “political revolution,” why pretend that our political disputes turn on the “best” reading of an eighteenth-century text, the Constitution?

That We Love Our Country More

In defeat, Liz Cheney seizes the high ground and declares war on the Party of Trump

On Treason: A Citizen’s Guide to the Law

An excerpt exploring the meaning of treason and the present-day prevalence of alleging treason

Did the Militia Group that Planned to Kidnap the Michigan Governor Commit Treason?

They stand accused of hoping to trigger “a civil war leading to societal collapse”

Mike Pompeo’s Originalist Foreign Policy

The Commission’s report gives ammunition to partisans who aim to weaken core constitutional protections within the United States

The U.S. Needs to Protect Free and Fair Elections

Here’s how

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