R: America is Good Because Her Constitution is Great

Friday, April 8th, 2016 at 8:00 p.m. in the Berkeley Mendenhall Room

 Thomas Chambers, The Constitution and the Guerriere, ca. 1845, oil on canvas, 62.9 × 79.4 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The Constitution is a written contract that expresses the ideas and notions most fundamental to our country. Perhaps the greatest democratic feat, it serves as something that every generation recognizes the duty to preserve and protect. But is it what makes America good? 

Is our written constitution what binds us despite our different ethnicities, nationalities, and religions? Is the goodness of America contingent on the fact that we can point to our legal rights? Does more law mean more justice? Or is America's goodness in her traditions? In her people? 

In an era when the Constitution is continually contorted to serve the political interest of our leaders, can we honestly claim its greatness? And if we can, can we still say it is the source of this country's goodness?