Welcome to this online course in

constitutional law.
My name Akhil Reed Amar.
I'll be the instructor for the course, and
in this introductory lecture I'd like to
outline
for you what this course is all about, so
you can decide whether it's right for you.
Constitutional law, as the phrase implies
is a course,
about the law of the Constitution and it's
a course
that will focus on the Constitution
itself, the written Constitution.
The course in some ways will revolve
around the written Constitution, but we
will, in the course of the semester, go
beneath, beyond
and behind the words of the Constitution,
while never losing sight, we hope,
with the words themselves.
It's a course designed for a wide range of
students.
At one end I hope even experts in
constitutional law might learn something
new in this course.
People who have taught Constitutional law
in a law school or, or in a college,
I hope would benefit from, from some of
the things that we'll be talking about
over
the course of the semester.
At the other end however, this is a course
for a broad range of citizens,
for non-experts, for students in high
school taking
AP History, or AP Government and wanting
to get a deeper understanding of the
American constitution and the legal system
surrounding the American constitution.
It's a course for people who, teach in
high school, who teach AP History
or AP Governmen,t or who just simply
want to, improve their understanding of
American civics.
It's a course for, for journalists, and
college students, and law students, and
political activists.
And really frankly, anyone who wants to
understand the constitution better.
It's a course that, will unfold over,
a series of, of lectures.
In this introductory lecture I want to
tell you a little bit about the themes of
the course, the substantive themes, and
the format of the course.
Substantive themes we
will start, with the written Constitution.
And we will go
through the written Constitution, in
textual order.
We'll start with, the first sentence of
the Constituion, the Preamble.
We'll work our way through, the written
Constitution, in
textual order, Article I, the legislature,
Article II, the Executive,
Article III, the Judiciary, Article IV is
about federalism
about States and their relationship to
each other and to
the central government.
Articles V, VI, VII are about the
supremacy of the Constitution.
How it can be amended.
Why it's the supreme and how it's the
supreme law.
How it got enacted in the first place,
ordained and established.
So, that takes you through the
written Constitution as originally adopted
In 1787,
'88.
The Preamble and Articles I-VII in textual
order.
But the Constitution doesn't end there.
Our current Constitution, our written
Constitution, it goes on to have a series
of Amendments, beginning with the first
10, which we call the Bill of Rights.
Though that phrase isn't in the
Constitution itself.
It's part of constitutional law, that
phrase, but, but it's not in the document,
the text itself, the first ten Amendments,
adopted shortly after
the Constitution was ratified, back in the
late 18th century.
Then, we'll focus, we'll examine those
Admendments, again
working our way through the thing in
textual order.
And we'll confront the Amendments after
the Civil War, the Reconstruction
amendments.
The 13th Amendment that ends slavery, A
14th Amendment that
promises, that guarantees equal
citizenship to all born in America,
as equal citizens black and white, male
and female, Jew and gentile.
We will then encounter Amendments from the
20th century, from the Progressive Era and
Income Tax Amendment, the Sixteenth
Amendment, and
seventeenth Amendment about the direct
election of Senators.
We'll talk about
how women got the vote and the nineteenth
Amendment, the Suffrage Amendment.
We'll work our way through to more modern
Amendments.
From the, second half of the 20th century,
from the
1960s, which restrict poll taxes and, and
give 18-year-olds the vote.
So, in short, we're going to work our way
in
the first half of this course, through,
the written Constitution,
from start, to finish.
And, in the course of doing that we're
also, as a, as a practical matter,
going to work our way forward in time,
precisely because the Amendments have been
added in chronological order.
And so, when we go through the original
Constitution,
we're going to focus on the text that was
adopted in
the late 1700's and then as we confront
the Amendments in textual order
we'll gradually come forward in time
through to the modern era.
And we're going to, end with a 27th
amendment, the most recent amendment to be
adopted that, that was adopted in, in the
life time of many of, of you students.
It was adopted
recently in the 1990s.
So, so, that's, the first half of the
course, really,
is working our way through the written
constitution from start to finish.
Now, American constitutional law isn't
just about
the document itself, this, this terse
text.
I'm reaching into my back pocket here to
pull out
a copy.
There are many copies available.
It's only 8,000 words.
Start to finish, including all the
amendments.
You can read it in about a half an hour,
and at the end of
this lecture I'm actually going to invite
you,
please, to read it before our next
lecture.
But the 8,000 words of this document
don't capture, the entirety of American
constitutional law.
They anchor the project of
American constitutional law.
They are the foundation of the whole
thing, and we
never want to lose sight of the terse text
the
written document, which is why we're going
to walk through
the text so carefully for the first half
of this course.
But, as I said, the text isn't all of
American constitutional law,
it's the starting point, it's the anchor.
And for the second half of the course
we're going to talk about the unwritten
constitution
that supplements without supplanting the
terse text.
That we're going to go beyond, beneath,
and behind the words of
the document while, we hope, never losing
site of the document itself.
You see, because the document itself
doesn't say the rule of law.
Doesn't say, separation of powers
in so many words.
Doesn't say checks and balances.
Doesn't say federalism.
Doesn't say the Bill of Rights.
Doesn't say one person, one vote.
Doesn't say that separate isn't racial
segregation, is inherently unequal.
And yet all of those things are
parts of American constitutional law, our
constitutional system.
And so in the second half of the course,
we're going to
explore the unwritten Constitution that
supplements the written
Constitution.
And the trick here is going to be
trying to figure out ways of going beyond
the Constitution,
without losing connection to the
Constitution.
The Constitution itself, for example,
doesn't have, an explicit set of
rules about how it should be interpreted.
That's part of the unwritten Constitution
itself.
How do we interpret the written
Constitution?
The Constitution, the written Constitution
itself says
that there may be unwritten unenumerated
rights, but
it doesn't quite tell us in, in great
detail how to find those unwritten rights.
But the constitution itself, the written
text, or
the terse tex,t gestures beyond itself in
all
sorts of ways.
And in the second half of the course we're
going
to take the text's invitation to go
outside of it.
Ultimately in order to redeem the text, to
make sense of the text, to fully
understand it as a comprehensive whole.
And, the way we're going to do that, is,
by focusing on, and, and deploying the
various tools and
techniques of constitutional
interpretation.
Each one that goes beyond the literal text
understood in very, in a very narrow way.
So we are going to go beyond narrow
literalism and yet ultimately try to make
sense of the text as whole and the project
of American constitutional law as a whole.
In other words, we are all textualists and
we are all,
in a sense, living constitutionalists as
well.
We are both.
American Constitutional law involves both
the terse text and various tools and
techniques for going beyond literalism
while
remaining faithful to the American
constitutional project.
So in a nutshell, that's what we're
going to do over the course of the
semester.
And the first half of the course will
be focused on the written Constitution,
the terse text.
And the second half will go beyond the
written Constitution in various ways.
Now, in order to give more structure to
our,
our journey together over the course of
this semester, I'm going to be
tracking fairly closely two books that
I've written for a general
audience designed to introduce them to
first the written Constituation and
then to the unwritten Constitution.
These texts are not
required reading for the course.
You can experience this online course just
by watching the lectures and participating
in the online,
activities that we've got planned for you.
But if you'd like a
deeper understanding of the material that
we
will be covering in this course, I would
invite you to, try to read
these two, recommended books.
They're not required, they're recommended.
And, and the lectures for this course will
be tracking those two books.
The first one is called America's
Constitution, the subtitle is A Biography.
And it walks you, the reader,
the ordinary citizens, the high school
student, the journalist, the, the teacher,
the
civics teacher, it walks you through the
written Constitution from start to finish.
And we will be tracking this book, in the
first half of the semester, America's
Constitution: A Biography.
It's available in paperback.
You can get it at most libraries, public
libraries.
It's available online if
you want to purchase it.
It's I think about 15 bucks or so.
I think maybe even a little less in
paperback.
To repeat, it is not required.
You're going to be able to experience this
course without going through
this book, but if you want more detail and
background, if you want
to have a handy reference book later on
for some of the,
the themes of the course, America's
Constitution: A Biography is available to
you.
And that's the first half of the course.
And in fact for the first half of the
course, what we're going to do each
week, this book has 12 chapters, each week
we'll cover a different chapter of the
book.
And the book works through the text in
textual order, the Preamble,
Articles I, II, III, etc, until you get to
the end, Article VII.
And then the Amendments in order.
First ten, 13, 14, 15, after the Civil
War, and so on.
So, this book works you through the text
of the Constitution,
and this course, will track, in the first
half, this book.
Each week, we'll do a different chapter of
the book, and there are 12.
Excuse me, each week we're going to do,
excuse
me, two chapters of this book and they're
12 chapters.
So, the first six weeks of the course
we'll work our way through the written
Constitution.
Now for the second half of the course,
America's unwritten Constitution, we have
a
second book, it's called America's
Unwritten Constitution.
It's also written by me.
The subtitle of this book is the
Precedents and Principles We Live By.
This book also has 12 chapters.
We're going to work through those
chapters, two chapters a week.
So, just to kind of recap.
We'll spend the first six weeks on the
written Constitution,
start to finish.
And we'll focus on America's Constitution:
A Biography.
We'll spend the second six weeks pondering
the unwritten Constitution that
supplements that written.
And we'll go through this book,
Americas Unwritten Constitution, two
chapters a week.
And that's pretty much the structure of
the course in a nutshell.
The substantive themes of the course?
My claim will be that
the written Constitution is more
democratic, than we've understood.
When we, when we, when we read the
document in historical context, it's
much more about, in a phrase, we
the people than has been conventionally
understood.
Alas, the original document was also more
pro-slavery,
the original document, than we've been
taught and, and that
pro slavery aspect of the original
Constitution almost destroys the project
that's going to lead to a massive Civil
War because the Constitution originally
was both Democratic and slaveocratic, that
is, pro-slavery.
Just a second theme of the course,
the, the, the relationship between
democracy and
slavery, especially in the original
Constitution, and
that fundamental contradiction that almost
destroyed the document.
A third basic theme is that the original
Constitution and it's Amendments,
frankly, have been much more about
national security than has conventionally
been understood.
So, those are three of the
substantive themes: Democracy, slavery and
national security.
And, national security will
be explained in context of geography, and
geo-strategy and America's, position in
the world.
So, those are some of the themes of the
first half of the course:
Democracy, slavery, and
geo-strategies/national security.
The theme of the second half of the course
is that there are various tools
and techniques, that you need to, you need
to know not just what the Constitution
says,
but how to interpret it, the rules of
constitutional interpretation.
Because there are some rules, not
everything counts in constitutional law.
Textual argument is one of those
techniques,
rules of interpretation, but not the only
one.
So, we'll also talk about other
tools and techniques of constitutional
interpretation.
We'll talk about the need to understand
the documents structure as a whole,
not in, not in individual sentences, but
the architectural of the whole thing.
Leading to concept's like federalism,
separation of
powers, limited government, the rule of
law.
We'll talk about the need to analyze the
Constitution in light of case law,
precedent, in light of the customs, the
evolving customs of the American people.
We'll talk about the
Constitution still to be written in the
21st and 22nd centuries.
We'll go beyond the written texts in
various ways.
And that, those will be some of the themes
of the second half of the course.
We'll focus on America's state
Constitutions alongside its Federal
Constitution.
One or two final thoughts about the
structure and format of the course.
A picture is often worth a thousand words.
And for each lecture we're going to have a
picture to get you started.
I'll say a little bit about the picture
here up on
the screen, at the end, just in a minute
or two.
But each chapter of the books begins with
a picture and we'll
put those pictures up on the screen for
you to see them.
And if you understand the picture, you'll
often
understand the theme or themes of that
chapter.
and, so, let's look at
the, the, the, the, here the, the image
for the course as a
whole.
What picture, is this, and, and, and what
to trying to tell you?
Well, it's telling you that
this is a course about words.
You see text at the top of that picture.
But also about people.
You see people at the, individuals at the
bottom of that picture.
And American Constitution is about words
and
about deeds, about things that actual
people did.
People like George Washington here
standing very prominently in this picture.
The words that this image highlights
aren't the entirety of the written
Constitution.
They're the Preamble and one theme of the
course is the Preamble is actually
particularly important.
It's only one sentence, but worth careful
attention, and those
first three words of the preamble are in
particularly large type,
we pardon me, large script, We the people,
and, and we're
going to emphasize those words, and I'm
going to try to explain what
those words meant in context and continue
to mean.
The particular image that we have here, we
the
people, is actually taken from the
National Constitution Center.
That's actually, the top of this image is
the
facade of the National Constitution
Center, which is a beautiful
building in Philadelphia, right opposite
Independence Hall where the
Constitution was actually drafted, that's
the bottom of that picture.
George Washington and others,
in the Philadelphia Convention, which met
in the
summer of 1787 and, and proposed the
written Constitution.
But, but the top here, that we the people,
is taken from the National Constitution
Center in Philadelphia.
I, strongly encourage you to visit the
National Constitution Center, to deepen,
your understanding.
In fact, the new president, of the
Constitution Center is one of my, former
students.
He took a version of this class, himself,
his name is, is Jeff Rosen,
and I, I, I put all my cards on the table.
One of the things that I'm most proud of
is that I
help launch the National Constitution
Center way back when, about 15 years ago.
And and, and am an academic adviser to the
Center.
So, that's some of what you see in this
picture.
It's a picture about we the people.
About words, and about actual people doing
things and we'll talk about that as
part of the American constitutional
project.
So I hope you think the picture is rather
interesting and vivid.
And I hope this course is interesting and
vivid, we're never going to
lose sight of the text, ever, even when we
go beneath it.
Even this picture, it's beneath it, beyond
it, and behind it.
We're never going to lose sight of the
text.
And probably, if you had to pick the words
of the text that are the most important
I don't think you could go wrong if you
focused on the Preamble in general.
And those first three words, we the
people, in particular.
Which brings me finally to, the close of
this lecture, this introductory lecture
and your assignment for, our first, our
first sessions.
I'd like you to read the text of the
Constitution, including its Amendments.
It's about 8,000 words, as I said, a half
hour.
If you can't, if you can't read the whole
thing at the very least please read the
Preamble.
It's a sentence long.
So, in fact, reread it a couple of times.
Try to think about what it's saying and
that's what we're actually going to spend
our first two lectures talking about, just
once sentence in the Constitution: a
supremely
important sentence, a sentence that
launches the whole thing.
It doesn't say, it doesn't describe itself
explicitly as the Preamble.Though that,
that, that,
that word, Preamble, is, in effect,
unwritten,
but that's what we all call it today.
We call it the Preamble, so that's an
interaction of the written Constitution
with the unwritten.
We call it the Preamble, even though you
won't see that word in
the document, and my claim is that if you
carefully ponder these words they
will help you understand three of the
biggest questions of the American
Constitution Law.
One, how
democratic was America's Constitution in
context,
in its historical context?
Two, did it
create an indivisible union, a union from
which states
would not be able to unilaterally secede?
Exactly what, what do we mean, the United
States?
We the people of the United States?
Exactly how united was the Constitution?
Were the states supposed to be under the
Constitution?
So how democratic was the thing?
Did it create an indivisible, indisoluble
union?
Was Mr. Lincoln right in the Civil War,
or was Jefferson Davis right in the Civil
War?
And finally,
if it did create an indivisible union, if
Mr. Lincoln was
right, why?
See
you next week.
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