The Founders' Evolving Constitution

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

While debates over whether to consider the Constitution as a “living” document are far from new, recent scholarship takes seriously the possibility that the founding generation saw the Constitution in dynamic rather than fixed terms, with ratification only the beginning of an evolving constitutional system. The papers on this panel reveal sophistication in early American thinking about constitutional adaptability, evolving visions of federalism, and the complexities of democratic governance. They illuminate how foundational debates shaped the ratification struggle, with legacies defining constitutional issues today. As these papers suggest, a tendency to venerate the founding and "the founders" too often blinds Americans in the present to an important theme in founding era thought: the notion that "founding" is an ongoing process that requires the active involvement of the people.

Sub Unit

• Division 56: American Political Thought

Individual Presentations

• Rediscovering the Founders’ Constitution - Connor Ewing, University of Toronto

• Adams & Jefferson on the Problem of Oligarchy - Luke Mayville, Boise State University

• Constituting Citizens: James Wilson's Vision of American Constitutionalism - Michelle Schwarze, University of Wisconsin, Madison; James R. Zink, North Carolina State University

• Law as Conflict: The Constitutive Rhetoric of the American Legal System - Lucy Williams, Brigham Young University Law School

Discussant

• James H. Read St. John's University/ College of Saint Benedict