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Letter from Director, Jeremy Bailey

August 25, 2022

When I tell people that my new job is teach courses about the Constitution, the response is almost always something like the following—“Wow, that’s great, we need more of that.” I am grateful for this response, in part because I know that that public trust in universities and in university faculty is in decline. What explains this response?

The Constitution is the first and best attempt by a people to live, as Alexander Hamilton put it, by reflection and choice rather than by accident and force. It is based on the principle, declared by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, that no person may govern another without that person’s consent. This means that the one or the few who are most equipped to rule – by nature or by training -- may do so only if a majority of us have chosen them to do so. But the Constitution goes further than this, for it also requires that even this democratic rule be carefully limited against the ambition of those who seek our permission to hold office. This is to say that the Constitution is designed to limit the authority of our own representatives.

This points to a second question. Why would people admire a document that limits their own power? One possible answer is that polarization has reminded people of the danger of the alternative. Our elected officials now seem eager to disregard compromise and aim for major transformation whenever they enjoy even a bare majority, or even when their candidate occupies the White House. As policy – made often by presidential dictate – shifts from extreme to the next, power seems more and more arbitrary and more and more capricious. The Constitution is reminder that we have all agreed to live under the rule of law, and the rule of law – at the center of which is due process—protects the rights we enjoy under the law of Nature. The rule of law is thus the rule of reason, and reason – not appetite or whim – is the essential human characteristic. The study of the Constitution – its principles, its failings, and its puzzles – is part of the human longing to use reason to achieve self-government to secure rights.

But self-government and life under the rule of law has not the been the experience of most of humanity, either in the past or now. This is why Hamilton called it an experiment. As events at home and around the world have reminded us, this experiment requires a citizenry committed to preserving and sheltering it against those who wish to end or transform it.

At the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage, we enjoy a community dedicated to understanding, and continuing, this noble attempt to secure natural rights through self-government. I am thrilled to be part of this community, and I look forward to getting to know you.

Jeremy D. Bailey

Sanders Chair in Law and Liberty