Join America’s leading constitutional scholar, Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling professor of law and political science at Yale University, for The Words that Made Us, America’s Constitutional Conversation 1760 – 1840, as part of the John Marshall Center’s Marshall Scholar Series, co-presented by the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. Free to JMC and VMHC members, students, teachers, and veterans (active and retired). $10 for non-members. JMC thanks the University of Richmond Law School for help with this program.
When the US Constitution won popular approval in 1788, it was the culmination of thirty years of passionate argument over the nature of government. But ratification hardly ended the conversation. For the next half century, ordinary Americans and statesmen alike continued to wrestle with weighty questions in the halls of government and in the pages of newspapers. Should the nation’s borders be expanded? Should America allow slavery to spread westward? What rights should Indian nations hold? What was the proper role of the judicial branch?
In The Words that Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted, and he expertly assesses the answers they offered. His account of the document’s origins and consolidation is a guide for anyone seeking to properly understand America’s Constitution today.
