Everyone loved cheerleaders, happy, pretty, pam westerned pampered and without worries. I was done. I walked to the end of the hall to jairs room. She was still unpacking and in deep conversation she had to take back to new york because they could not fit in the dorm room. No television or radio. To pass the time before lunch i listened to conversations through paper thin walls. She came all by herself. I know, thats so sad. She felt sorry for me. I couldnt take it. I focused on the green flower on my bed spread. My door was still opened and i didnt anyone to pass by and notice me crying. I sat there working hard to convince myself that i was going to be okay. To them i was a little girl from california, to me i was the girl who made it. [applause] thank you, nicole, for that beautiful reading. I love what you said by the love of black woman that we are all sustained may we all continue to be sustained. Thank you all for joining us and again, nicole, we will meet you in the lobby for further conversation and book signing, thank you very much. [inaudible conversations] youre watching book tv on cspan2. Television for serious readers. Here is a look at whats on prime time tonight. We kick off the evening at 7 20 p. M. Eastern with burt and anita, professors discus long friendship with a former death row inmate and at 8 00 subas reports on the 30year relationship between first Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Associated Press reporter. At 9 00 p. M. Eastern james rosen talks about a torch kept lit, collection of essays by the william. Buckley and at 10 afterwords program. Tim woo provides history of advertising and current use. We wrap up book tv in prime time at 11 00 p. M. Andrew scott cooper looks into the last shaw. All ha happens tonight at cspan2 book tv. Colombia University Law professor tim woo and oriental is the new black actress dian guerrero. On friday november 8th, we are at the Washington Press club for 39th annual book fair and authors night. Later in the month live from the Miami Book Fair on november 19th and 20th. Coverage includes author discussion and callin programs featuring senator Bernie Sanders, fox news host dana parino and finalists colson. For more information about the book fairs and festivals book tv will be covering and watch previous festival coverage, click the book fairs tab on our website, book tv. Org. [inaudible conversations] hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, because this is being recorded may i ask that you please turn off your cell phones and any other electronic devices. Thank you. Good afternoon im joanne meyers, i would like to welcome our members and our guests and cspan book tv to this Public Affairs program. Our guest is renowned constitutional law scholar. Professors remarks will be based on latest book entitled the constitution today, timeless lessons for the issues of our era. In a election season with so much at stake, why turn our attention to the constitution to a document pinned so long ago but those long gone, the answer may surprise you as it is simple and direct. While candidates do matter, the constitution matters more. It is that one document which was create today watch over our government, limited power and protect individual rights. All branches of the government whether it is the president and his administration, the congress or the Supreme Court, they are all under the rulings of the constitution. In the constitution today, they bring the constitution to us and he does this by analyzing the realtime constitutional context of the last two decades and drawing our attention, for example, for the impeachment of bill clinton, the contested election of george w. Bush and fight over barack obama Affordable Care act. He teaches us how to do constitutional law. In the popular imagination, there are two ways of interpreting the constitution, theres a conservative way which views documents strictly in light of the words on the page and the original intent of the Founding Fathers at the time of the signing of the constitution and theres the liberal way which feeds the constitution as a living text with room to accommodate and change over time. After todays talk im positive there may be a third and please join me in giving me a warm welcome to our guest akhil reed amar. I think she gave you an extraordinary account of what it is that we are going to be talking about today which is the constitution and its ongoing relevance. At a certain point early your than you might expect im going to draw you into the constitution because i like us to have a democratic conversation about the issues you want to talk about and im not so vain to think that the reason is me. I think the reason is we are all part of a constitutional tradition that is specially relevant at election time or president ial elections and maybe this precedential election more than just anyone any other election that i can remember since, believe it or not, 1864 and i will tell you why. Its such a significant electoral event and whether you know it or not, you all were drawn i think to this place to have constitutional conversation. Before i tell you about 1864 in this moment, joanna i think got us off on just the right foot of reminding us about the beginning of the project. So i want you to take your mind back to what the world looked like a year before the constitution was proposed. Constitutional was proposed in 1787, i consider that year, the year in which the constitution was deliberated on by the american people, hinge of Human History. Year that changed everything. There is in effect if you are looking at things from a secular point of view, there is bc and ad. Before the constitution and after the document. So just [laughter] so lets take our minds back to to, lets say, 1786, the year before the constitution is proposed. You look across the planet and who governed themselves democratically outside of the United States . The articles of confederation are up and running. The war for independence has won, outside of america theres britain and switzerland and thats about it. Even britain although it has jury trials in which ordinary britains cant participate and a so house house of commons that they still call because you need an annual income, a 600pound sterling and a state worth 600pound sterling in annual income just to occupy a seat in the so house of commons. But they have a house of commons but they have an elected monarch who doesnt merely reign but rules, she decides issues of war and peace. He hires and fires Prime Ministers at will. He has real power and no one elected him and a real house of lords thats hereditary and has real power, a genuine opera house and and you can earn your way to it. Thats not their house but theres some selfgoverning in britain in 1786 and in switzerland but despite the time has no cities and has no banks, mitt romney is knot interested in it because there are more sheep than goats, sheep and goats than human beings, excuse me, in switzerland and theyre largely selfgoverning because their neighbors leave them alone. You have to charge up a hill and when you get there theres not much else. Thats it for selfgovernment. And then in this year that changed thats not 1786, thats 1785 and 1685 and 1585 and all the 85s all the way back until the dawn of time theres practically no selfgovernment on the planet. Yes, there are a few ancient greek city states that make go democracy for five centuries before christ, you have athens under the constitution, and you have preimperrial rome and tinny little places much smaller than modern day new heaven, connecticut. They all speak the same language, they worship the same god or gods. They are not warm weather and cold weather people getting together. They are not multiple climate zones for that and they cant make democracy last for a long stretch of time and cant surmount and repel external attacks and they all blink out. And here is the history of the world from the constitution, the history of king, emperors, sultans and then we the people of the United States did an actual fact or an established constitution up and down the con constitution. If joe biden would say freaken continent. Lets take india where my parents are born, when they are born in undivided india they have a british monarch that no one voted for telling them what to do and a British Parliament that nobody told them what to do just like the america revolutionary is confronted, now its a b with a b people across an entire subcontinent multiple time zones, a different climatic area, multiple religions, multiple ethnicity, multiple languages, as much diversity as all of europe and they govern themselves you see now with a written constitution and free and Fair Elections and multiple Political Parties that alternate in power and a rule of law and religious tolerance and equality and free speech and judicial review and where did that get that, those ideas from . They got those from the United States constitutional project. Not just india, lets take western europe. France is a Great Republic, great democracy, almost as impressive as california. [laughter] i say almost because actually they dont have as much religious toleration in france, truth be told. They dont have as much linguistic diversity and even Ethnic Diversity as california, truth be told. You can guess where i grew up, california. But at the time of the constitution france was monarchy and not just france, you see, Great Republic today but all of western europe, italy, we could talk about germany, we could talk about Eastern Europe because a wall fell and i want to give credit to both republican president s like Ronald Reagan and democratic president s like jack kennedy who said that he was a berliner very famously but that wall fell and now we have democracy across much of Eastern Europe struggling to firmly entrench itself in hungary, poland, check republic and elsewhere, japan. It has a democracy today and that democracy, my friend, my claim is was made in the United States of america and by the United States of america and by the United States constitution which is not a text but a deed, a doing, an act, a constitute bhordian and establishment and that took place in 1787. We did the people did something and even the ancient democracies had never put their constitutions to a vote, one person typically, the law giver maybe claiming a pipeline to god in effect, hands the law down from on high, so long, the law giver and the british constitution it has never been a single text, institutions, evolving customs but never reduce today a single text that parliament has authorized much less the entire british people can actually read and vote on up or down. Do you know why this thing is short . Not so judges can make stuff up, coordinate people can read it then and now you can read the thing from start to fiction, it takes you an hour and you can decide who youre for or against it. If youre a farmer in New Hampshire or an artisan in new york for that matter or anywhere else up and down the continent, its pretty extraordinary and you can still read it, you see. Thats why its short so that you can read it and you have to make ongoing constitutional decisions they are called elections and come to that . Just a moment, but you see even the ancient democracies had never put constitution to a vote. They didnt have democratic constitutionmaking procedures in 1776 the declaration of ib dependence not put to a vote. The new york constitution of the following year not put to vote. Articles of confederation and preexisting regime not put to any popular vote. Massachusetts does adopt constitution by popular vote and so does new jersey. And youre either with us or against us in 1776 if youre not basically on our side you have two choices, one, leaf or shut up but thats not the constitution of 1787 or 88. People opposed the constitution, Vice President of the United States, clinton, justices on the Supreme Court, samuel, the people oppose the constitution saying, dude, you forgot the rights and theyre the ones, the antifederalist who in effect give us the bill of rights, bottom up from this ratification process. What word phrase appears in more amendments than any other, the phrase of the people, the First Amendment has the right of the people to petition and assemble, the second is the right of the people to keep them there. The Fourth Amendment right of the people to be free from unreasonable searches and see well, now that you mention it, you know, we actually do have a few ideas and George Washington youre pretty good but you forgot the rights. The constitution is crowd sourced. Its wikipedia because if you believe in democracy you believe that there is a common wisdom, a wisdom of crowds that maybe greater as collectivity than of any one individual even if the individual is a genius like ben franklin and thats the project that joanna invoked that we continue because you see it was deeply flawed in all sorts of way. We are about woman, what about slavery. So it begins the modern constitutional project that the project that changes the entire world in 1787, 88 is like a big bang and amendments make amends, bill of rights and the later generation will abolish slavery and promise birthright citizenship for everyone in america. President ial candidates who dont understand that birthright citizenship for everyone in america and we promised equal Voting Rights for blacks and we are not done because we enfranchise half of the population, half a century later with woman suffrage and if you dont think women suffrage matter, i have you three words for you, president mitt romney. He won without the men and without women suffrage you would have a different United States. Mitt romney won with men and lost against women. Theres a continuation of we the people of the idea that began in 1787, we got rid of poll tax and other things, so and we are not done yet but we we cant really know how to Carry Forward that project unless we actually understand it and that brings me to this book, the constitution today but i told you i would say just a little bit about 1864 and let me do that and then in the next five minutes we will start our conversation together. Here is one of the reasons i believe you all came today. Its not just that you face a president ial election and thats interesting, its not just that one of the two candidates this time around is very unusual. We havent sign any one with just a profile, no government experience whatsoever including military experience. Thats true of trump and it hasnt ever true of any elected president and the only nominee that came close in all of American History was windle wilky who hadnt actually done Public Service before. Thats a Political Science way of saying, this is an interesting election that you have a candidate who is in distinctive in that way. Its not just that, its that all four of the major branches of federal power are up for grabs. On a knifes edge. The house, the senate, the judiciary, the presidency all up for grabs and come january you can have President Donald Trump and if he wins he carries the senate and if he carries the senate he also carries the Supreme Court which is now poised between four republican appointees and four democrat appointees but if he wins the present seat and senate he fills the vacancy by Justice Scalias demise and he win it is judiciary and almost impossible from a Political Science perspective if that if he wins presidency and senate and doesnt carry the house with them. Thats one another possible world is that Hillary Clinton becomes president and she is not certain to carry the senate but likely to for similar reasons, she therefore gets the Supreme Court. Im not sure she carries the house of representatives. She would have to win by 5 or 6 points nationally probably for that to happen and we can talk about why thats so if youre interested but its possible for all four to be democrat controlled in january, come january or republican controlled. Theyre all up for grabs. That doesnt usually happen. As i cast my mind back, i basically think you have to go back to Abraham Lincoln in 1864 when all four of the branches, house, senate, judiciary and the presidency were up for grabs in play in that way. I will just say maybe one or two sentences about why thats so and then we are going to play a game together. So lincoln the twoparty system, our twoparty system goes back to 1860. In 1860 even if lincoln wins hes never going to control the Supreme Court because its dominated by previous democrat president ial appointees. By 1864 the court is in play, the house is in play and matters whether you vote for lincoln or for mcclullan, narcissist businessman type. [laughter] hes from new jersey although he doesnt own any casinos and that matters, that election because everything is in play. But after lincoln wins, and on my way over, by the way, i walked over and i past that amazing statute of sherman. When he wins, his party chief is winning and so on and eventually the republican dominate the court that rare democrats who win in era have no chance no dominating the court. No democrat wins a majori