Twice a year, I travel to Washington, D.C., as part of my board obligations for the American Association for Justice. I always carve out time to strap on my running shoes and take the same walk: my hotel to the White House to the Lincoln Memorial to the World War II Memorial to the Washington Monument down Constitution Avenue around the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Court and back to my hotel.
Normally, it is just a prime opportunity for me to geek out. This time is different. It is four days after Prof. Joel Goldstein, who has devoted his working life to the study of our Constitution, told us that he is profoundly concerned about the state of our Constitutional democracy. And so on this beautiful day as I look up at our country's monuments, I do not feel awe; I feel desperation.
Goldstein reminded us of our Constitutional core — the fundamental ideals for which all lawyers can agree: We are a limited government, and our governing bodies are tasked with what they are best suited to perform. We are a government of the people, we the people.
Although we did not begin this way, we have ratified pluralism — our belief of inclusivity. We are a government of laws, not of persons; nobody is above the law. We have made a commitment to deliberative government, based on information and civil dialogue. It is inherent in the way a bill becomes law and our Courts write opinions. Deliberative government depends on truth. Finally, imbedded in our Constitution is our reciprocal commitment to each other. None of us always gets our way: sometimes our policies win and sometimes they lose. And when we are on the losing end our commitment to one another requires us to put our Constitution on a higher plane than individual policy.
Of course, Goldstein provided ample authority for each of these fundamental concepts.
With these as our fundamental Constitutional values, it is easy to see why Goldstein is concerned. If even one of these values shakes, they all shake. Right now, they are all shaking independently. It is this earthquake that changes my normally peaceful walk into a desperate one.
What can we do? Goldstein spoke of a lawyer's duty to act with Constitutional morality and to promote appreciation of Constitutional ideals. He also spoke of the need for the citizens of our country to feel a sense of responsibility and how we as lawyers can help ensure that we have an alert and informed citizenry.
That, to me, feels like trying to tell a bird where to fly. How can we accomplish that task in today's climate? Where do we start? I suggest that we start by listening. We listen to the people who have run out of rope. We listen to people with whom we do not agree. We listen to people we think are destroying our country. We diagnose how it came that some of our citizens veered from America's core values. We take accountability for how we contributed to that. Only then do we gently inform.
I realize something as I walk down Constitutional Avenue, something that gives me hope. Although I was delighted to hear Prof. Goldstein speak again, we did not need him to tell us the foundational ideals to
which we all can agree.
We have etched them on our country's most treasured buildings:
That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth.
– The Lincoln Memorial
The Department of Commerce assembles here the forces designed by congress to advance the interests of industry and trade, through experimental research, the dissemination of knowledge and administrative vigilance it stimulates, the progress of America upon land and sea and in the air and thereby speeds the nation in the march of mankind.
– The Department of Commerce
The ties that bind the lives of our people in one indissoluble union are perpetuated in the archives of our government and to their custody this building is dedicated.
– Archives of the United States of America
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
– The United States Capitol
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
– The United States Capitol
We have built no temple but the Capitol. We consult no common oracle but the Constitution.
– The United States Capitol
Equal justice under law.
– Supreme Court of the United States
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