Why We Should Be Arguing More Over The Constitution

The Constitution turned 225 yesterday, and this week will be full of celebrations both solemn and stylish. As a civics nerd of the first order, I delight in every minute of Constitution Week. I wonder, though: what are we doing when we celebrate it?

We of course commemorate a daring experiment, what author and Yale law scholar Akhil Amar calls “the hinge point of history.” We restate the purposes of the Preamble. We cheer the simple fact that the Constitution is still around. But it’s easy to forget, amidst the fanfare and rhetoric, that celebration isn’t what the Constitution actually asks of us.

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