3 weeks ago
Crown
We whitethorn person an connection committee from thing you bargain from this article.
New York Times bestselling writer and humorist A.J. Jacobs antecedently wrote astir his research successful surviving life arsenic interpreted by nan Old and New Testaments successful "The Year of Living Biblically." Now, successful an effort to afloat understand our nation's founding document, Jacobs embarked connected a year-long quest to beryllium nan original originalist, successful "The Year of Living Constitutionally" (to beryllium published by Crown May 7). Yes, muskets were involved.
Read nan book's "preamble" below, and don't miss John Dickerson's question and reply pinch A.J. Jacobs connected "CBS News Sunday Morning" May 5!
"The Year of Living Constitutionally" by A.J. Jacobs
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The Preamble
I precocious discovered that if you locomotion astir New York City while carrying an eighteenth-century musket, you get a batch of questions.
"You gonna sprout immoderate redcoats?"
"Can you please leave?"
"What nan hell, man?"
Questions aside, a musket tin travel successful handy. When I arrived astatine my section java shop astatine nan aforesaid clip arsenic different customer, he told me, "You spell first. I'm not arguing pinch personification holding that thing."
Why was I carrying astir a ten-pound firearm from nan 1790s? Well, it's because I'm heavy into my twelvemonth of surviving constitutionally. For reasons I'll explicate shortly, I've pledged to effort to definitive my law authorities utilizing nan devices and mindset of erstwhile they were written successful 1787. My scheme is to beryllium nan original originalist.
I will carnivore arms, but only those arms disposable erstwhile nan Second Amendment was written. Hence nan musket and its accompanying bayonet.
I will workout my First Amendment correct to free speech—but I'll do it nan old-fashioned way: by scratching retired pamphlets pinch a quill pen and handing them retired connected nan street.
My correct to assemble? I will combine astatine coffeehouses and taverns, not complete Zoom aliases Discord.
If I'm to beryllium punished, I will insist my reward not beryllium sadistic and unusual, astatine slightest not sadistic and different by eighteenth-century standards (when, unfortunately, Americans considered it acceptable to person your caput stuck successful a pillory and get pelted by mud and rotten vegetables).
Thanks to nan Third Amendment, I whitethorn take to 4th soldiers successful my apartment—but I will footwear them onto nan thoroughfare if they misbehave.
My extremity is to understand nan Constitution by expressing my authorities arsenic they were interpreted backmost successful nan era of Washington and Madison (or, successful nan lawsuit of nan later amendments, really those amendments were interpreted erstwhile they were ratified). I want, arsenic overmuch arsenic possible, to get wrong nan minds of nan Founding Fathers. And by doing so, I want to fig retired really we should unrecorded today. What do we request to update? What should we ignore? Is location contented from nan eighteenth period that is worthy reviving? And really should we position this astir influential and perplexing of American texts?
I undertook this quest because reference nan news complete this past twelvemonth led maine to 3 important revelations.
The first revelation was conscionable really overmuch our lives are affected by this 4,543-word archive inscribed connected calfskin during that long-ago Philadelphia summer. The Supreme Court's caller arguable decisions connected a multitude of issues—including women's rights, weapon rights, biology regulations, and religion—all declare to stem from nan Constitution.
The 2nd revelation was conscionable really shockingly small I knew astir nan Constitution. I'd ne'er moreover publication it—not nan full thing, anyway. Thanks to Schoolhouse Rock!, I was acquainted pinch nan "We nan People" preamble. And I could callback a fistful of different celebrated passages, astir notably nan First Amendment, which is beloved by maine and my chap writers (as good arsenic by my kids, who mention it whenever I inquire them not to curse astatine me). But arsenic for nan full document, from commencement to finish? Never publication it.
And third, I realized conscionable really overmuch nan Constitution is simply a nationalist Rorschach test. Everyone, including me, sees what they want. Does nan Constitution support laissez-faire weapon rights, aliases does it support strict weapon regulation? Does it prohibit schoolhouse dream aliases not? Depends connected whom you ask.
And it's not conscionable nan issues we're divided on—it's nan Constitution itself. Is nan Constitution a archive of liberation, arsenic I was taught successful precocious school? Or is it, arsenic immoderate critics argue, a archive of oppression? Should we venerate this superb roadworthy representation that has arguably guided American prosperity and expanded state for 230-plus years? Or should we beryllium skeptical of this group of rules written by able racists who thought tobacco-smoke enemas were cutting-edge medicine?*
[* Tobacco-smoke enemas were a mainstream aesculapian curen for each sorts of ills. They progressive hoses, smoke, and hand-powered bellows. It is rather perchance nan root of nan building "blowing fume up your ass."]
It reminds maine of a William Blake quote I erstwhile publication astir nan Bible:
[We] some publication nan Bible time and night
But thou read'st achromatic wherever I publication white.
And, arsenic pinch nan Bible, whether you spot achromatic aliases achromatic successful nan Constitution depends mostly connected 1 important question: What is your method for interpreting this text?
Should we effort to observe nan original meaning from erstwhile nan matter was written? Or does nan meaning of nan matter germinate pinch nan times?
In fact, nan Bible-Constitution parallels helped springiness commencement to this book. I decided to bargain an thought from myself. Several years ago, I wrote a book called The Year of Living Biblically, in which I explored nan ways we construe nan Bible. I did this by pursuing nan rules successful nan Good Book arsenic virtually arsenic possible. I followed nan Ten Commandments, but I besides followed nan hundreds of much obscure rules. I grew immoderate alarmingly sprawling facial hairsbreadth (Leviticus says you should not shave nan corners of your beard) and tossed retired my poly-cotton sweaters (Leviticus says you cannot deterioration apparel made of 2 kinds of fabric). I became nan eventual fundamentalist.
The task was absurd astatine times but besides enlightening and inspiring. I recovered that immoderate aspects of surviving biblically changed my life for nan amended (the accent connected gratitude, for instance). I besides learned nan dangers of taking nan Bible excessively virtually (I don't urge stoning an adulterer successful Central Park, moreover if those stones are pebble-sized, arsenic excavation were). And I learned really challenging it is to fig retired what we should switch literalism with.
I'm not nan first to announcement that we dainty nan Constitution and nan Bible successful akin ways. Scholars person agelong described nan Constitution arsenic nan ineffable matter of our civic religion. Jefferson called nan delegates "demigods." And arsenic pinch nan Bible, location is an ongoing statement betwixt those who opportunity we should hew to nan original meaning and those who opportunity nan meaning evolves. It's nan originalists versus nan surviving constitutionalists. The 2 camps person been astir for decades, but successful nan past 5 years, nan originalists person gained astonishing power. Five of nan six blimpish justices connected nan Supreme Court are originalists of immoderate benignant (John Roberts is nan exception), a position that has affected their rulings connected abortion, weapon rights, and galore different topics. I felt it was time. I began prepping for a twelvemonth of surviving constitutionally.
Excerpted from "The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow nan Constitution's Original Meaning" by A.J. Jacobs. Published by Crown, an imprint of nan Crown Publishing Group, a section of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Copyright © 2024 by A.J. Jacobs.
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- "The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow nan Constitution's Original Meaning" by A.J. Jacobs (Crown), successful Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, disposable May 7
