The Contradictions of James Madison and, Therefore, of American Constitutionalism

Professor Lepore is issuing a timely and necessary warning about the need to think deeply about reforming our Constitution. The enemy, in this case, is not the British. Rather, it is ourselves, in our complacent unwillingness to engage with clear deficiencies of the present Constitution. She begins her essay with the extraordinary reminder that everything in the world is subject to decay, including the parchment on which the Constitution was originally written (for starters). That is true, of course, of the more abstract Constitution itself.