Who are “We The People”? Bruce Ackerman, Thomas Jefferson, and the Problem of Revolutionary Reform

Abstract

Bruce Ackerman of the Yale Law School proposes new procedures for constitutional reform to supersede the amendment process set forth in Article V of the U.S. Constitution. He argues that the revolutionary character of regime changes in the 1780s, 1860s, and 1930s has been disguised by the fiction of constitutional continuity. Americans will not be prepared for future constitutional crises if they fail to develop new amendment procedures to facilitate future reform efforts.

Thomas Jefferson's constitutionalism provides a critical perspective on Ackerman's project. Like Jefferson, Ackerman sees constitutional change as an opportunity for the “People” to return to revolutionary first principles; unlike Jefferson, he equates American nationhood with the progressive concentration of power in the federal state.