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This essential and authoritative collection of Constitution Day lectures, edited by AEI Senior Fellow Gary J. Schmitt, gathers distinguished scholars, judges, and political figures to explore the principles behind the American constitutional order, from civic education and the founding to the enduring health of the republic, while honoring the lasting scholarship of Walter Berns in a volume that belongs on every civics and constitutional studies shelf.
The first 13 of the AEI Walter Berns Constitution Day Lectures are now collected in one volume. Given by distinguished scholars, judges, and political figures—and edited by AEI Senior Fellow Gary J. Schmitt—the lectures cover a host of topics providing a deeper understanding of the US constitutional order and its underlying principles. The volume also reissues a 2011 panel discussion by Christopher DeMuth, Leon R. Kass, and Jeremy A. Rabkin honoring longtime AEI colleague Walter Berns’s still relevant and important scholarship on the Constitution and the American republic.
Introduction
Gary J. Schmitt
1. Spending, Public Debt, and Constitutional Design
Michael W. McConnell
2. Slavery and the Constitutional Convention
Michael P. Zuckert
3. The Constitution as Political Theory: Between Rationalism and Reverence
James W. Ceaser
4. The Magna Carta, Due Process, and Administrative Power
Philip Hamburger
5. Terrorism and the Bill of Rights: Suicide Pact or Not?
Michael B. Mukasey
6. From the Bench: The Constitutional Statesmanship of Chief Justice William Rehnquist
Brett M. Kavanaugh
7. Emancipating the Mind: Lincoln, the Founders, and Scientific Progress
Diana Schaub
8. Common-Law Originalism
James R. Stoner
9. "Remember the Ladies": Reflections on a Centennial of Women's Suffrage
Catherine H. Zuckert
10. The Centrality of the Constitution in the Civic Education of Americans
Wilfred M. McClay
11. Our Constitutional Moment: The Danger to the Rule of Law
Liz Cheney
12. Pluralism and the American Constitution
Neomi Rao
13. How to Take the Constitution Seriously
Yuval Levin
Afterword: Walter Berns and the Constitution - A Celebration: Remarks by Jeremy A. Rabkin, Leon R. Kass, Christopher DeMuth and Walter Berns
Walter Berns, Leon R. Kass, Christopher DeMuth, and Jeremy A. Rabkin
Walter Berns's Biography
About the Authors