This was another book I found courtesy of President Obama’s 2025 reading list. I’m glad I did because I came away from it with a greater understanding of the debates surrounding the United States Constitution. Unfortunately, we are stuck in a period of interpreting the Constitution called “originalism.” I learned exactly what that is as well, and why it seems to be a bit of selective originalism rather than true originalism.

Originalism is where those interpreting how the Constitution applies in the modern day look back at what the Founding Fathers intended and what was actually written down. The justification for overturning Roe V. Wade was that the right to an abortion was never mentioned in the Constitution. I could argue that it was something that the Founders didn’t feel it was their place to concern themselves with, but the current Supreme Court would disagree.

Author Jill Lepore has gone back to look at how the Constitution was originally formed. For that, she had to go back into the notes that were taken around the Constitutional Convention. There weren’t many good notes taken at the time. The ones that exist mostly were done by James Madison. The people at the Constitutional Convention also agreed not to discuss their deliberations publicly for fifty years. They didn’t want the country to rely on their thoughts as it developed. This would seem to negate the concept of originalism, doesn’t it? They also believed that one generation couldn’t be bound to something they didn’t write, and thought there would be many times the Constitution would be amended. That hasn’t happened either.

This is the platform that Lepore builds her history on. As the years have gone by, we’ve failed to amend the Constitution to keep up with the changing times. It’s not like she comes right out and says it, but I felt it was pretty obvious this was her position. She presents both sides of many cases and why they were decided the way they were at the time. She also gives a history of many of the judges on the Supreme Court, who are the ones deciding what laws we should obey, since we likely haven’t amended the Constitution to guarantee the many rights that individuals should have been granted in modern times.

She also details many of the amendments that were proposed at various times. I was aware of the Equal Rights Amendment, which was being fought for when I was young. I was not aware of how close they came to passing an amendment to abolish the Electoral College. The NAACP came out against that one, as well as more rural states, which likely doomed it. Lepore does get into their reasoning behind opposing the amendment, so reading this book was quite an education.

She refers to Article 5, which is the source for how to amend the Constitution quite a bit. It seems obvious that there was an intention for this to happen, yet there were long periods of time in American history when no amendments were passed. This is not just due to the political polarization we are currently experiencing. Without saying so openly, she infers that we could have avoided the problems we have now if we had amended the Constitution more over the years.

There’s a lot of discussion about Constitutional Conventions, which can be called upon to discuss amending the document as well. Most politicians seem to want to avoid this at all costs. The result is that we now have nine judges deciding most of the laws in this country. As much as they are supposed to be unbiased, they often are, and Lepore points out the inconsistencies in their “originalism” rulings.

Lepore narrates the audiobook, and I like her narration fine. She’s clear and easy to understand. At just a little more than 24 hours, this is a long book. Yet, I listened to it over the course of a few days, and it didn’t feel that long at all to me.

There were a few observations she made that I didn’t quite agree with, but overall, I found her insight to be informative and useful. The idea that amending the Constitution is the key to preventing revolution and bloodshed should concern all of us right now.