Can the Constitution Serve as a Document of National Unity?

We the People

National Constitution Center

History, News Commentary, News

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2024

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, AEI’s Yuval Levin, author of American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again, and Aziz Rana, professor at Boston College Law and author of The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them, join Jeffrey Rosen for a discussion about whether the Constitution has failed us or can serve as a document of national unity. Resources: Yuval Levin, American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again (2024) Aziz Rana, The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them (2024) “The Modern History of Originalism,” NCC’s We the People  podcast, (Aug 2023) Article V, Interactive Constitution Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected].    Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.  Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.  You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello friends. I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National
0:06.8	Constitution Center and welcome to We The People, a weekly show of
0:10.2	constitutional debate. The National Constitution
0:13.2	centers a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress to increase
0:17.3	awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people. In
0:21.8	this episode I'm delighted to share a conversation with two leading scholars about whether
0:27.3	or not the Constitution can serve as a document of national unity.
0:32.4	Yvonne is the author of American Covenant,
0:35.0	How the Constitution Unified Our Nation
0:38.0	and Could Again, which was just released on June 11th.
0:42.0	And Aziz Rama is author of The Constitutional Bind,
0:46.4	How Americans Came to Idilize A Document That Fails Them,
0:50.4	which came out on April 16th.
0:53.0	Enjoy the show.
0:55.0	Thank you so much for joining us, Hubel Levin and Aziz Rana.
0:59.0	The thesis of each of your superb books is well encapsulated in the subtitle.
1:05.0	You follow your book American Covenant, how the Constitution unifies our nation and could again
1:10.0	is one which I so admire, I've had the honor of reading it.
1:13.8	It's such a powerful argument for the Constitution
1:16.9	as a Madisonian document of National Unity.
1:20.6	Tell us how the Constitution was designed to unify our nation and how it could again.
1:27.0	Well, thank you very much, Jeff, and thanks to the Constitution Center for bringing us together.
	...

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