Of things. Its both available on amazon prime, a video series called a more or less perfectunion. As well as a companion book. If i can ask you judge ginsburg what was it that made you want to do this . Thank you tony for asking. This is addressed to what i think is a real crisis in our Education System in the us now. In that civics is not being taught as nearly and widely as it should be. Even American History is often neglected. So we have millions of students graduating each year from high school who have never been exposed to how our government works, what our constitution says. What our National Values are even. The younger person is these days, the more ignorant they are likely to be on these topics and we simply cannot have a functioning democratic republic with a completely ignorant population but we are heading in that direction. And i am, what im doing is part of a broader reaction to that in civics education. I think Sandra Day Oconnor started the ball rolling a dozen years ago when she resigned from the court. What is it, they created educational materials from the series and i did for pbs. And indeed a distributed the series to 170,000teachers of history and civics. So were going to reach about 1 Million Students a year. For as long as the issues remain pertinent and im sorry to say i think thats going to be a longtime. Im hoping that this will hasten the movement to restore civics to our basic educational system. In the last year, for states done just that. To legislation and two governors have required it. Massachusetts, florida, texas and osi and im hopeful there will be many more coming this year and the next. That certainly is a noble cause. I remember when i first started here so ive been on board about 10 years and the first person i interviewed was Justice Oconnor and she talked quite a bit about launching i civics and how important it was. Ill share a quick favorite moment and we will jump back but one of the students asked her how do you reconcile your personal opinion and you are making a decision on the Supreme Court and she looked at the audience, bring me my purse, bring me my purse. So her person was with her, brought her purse up on stage and she dug around and she said i dont reconcile my personal opinion, i reconcile it with this and she pulled out the cost copy of the constitution which was a beautiful moment for cynic learning and the importance of the constitution which is one of the reasons i was watching your series and looking through the book that you put together. Itabsolutely is very very important. The framers anticipated this problem of how do you make judges loyal to the law and to the constitution and their solution was for federal judges, a lifetime appointment. No potential reduction in salary ever. So theres nothing to fear. The oath is to the constitution and theres no other competing value to leave that behind you take that both. And you have every reason to do so. Absolutely. And i want to say, as we come into this, just the context for our audience. Its the day afterthe election which has not been decided. Are beingcounted. We are in a country that many would argue is pulled polarized as it has been in a long train of time. We have such a division between our political ideologies and the people who adhere to them and in your introduction to the book you wrote running through that right and you talk about a variety of people who contributed is it consistent sense of the centrality of the constitution in american life. In a big and diverse country which the us has been since the moment of its founding the constitution is what unites us. So im wondering if given the context of the current political moment and you talk about the life style appointment of judges who are in some ways sheltered from the politics of the moment. How is it, how do you see the constitution helping restore kind of this america thats united around a single document and set of ideas . We are still united around that document and set of ideas because thats what we argue about. What does it mean and how should it be applied and should be changed . Intense partisanship and division that youre talking about was with us right from the beginning. I think you know your history. I think youve taught history as i recall and the early American Republic was almost if not more bipartisan and divided then we are right now , at least as much so. The newspapers ran constant invective against one candidate because they were in secretcorrespondence with the other candidate. There were outrageous claims made by each side against the other. Of course, all mouth factions and so on. It was extremely bitter. And its been that way pretty much, not every year but on and off throughout our history. Its nothing new and ive lived through it before through the watergate era as recently as a year ago with the end attempt to impeach President Trump was a real spectacle of civics at work because more people in the senate and house arguing about . The meaning of the impeachment clause, what could be an Impeachable Offense in 1779. Itll have to agree but as long as theyre both arguing about that the republican safe. Is there arguing about should we overthrow it, then we be in real trouble. I think you do such a great job of this in the series of setting up this idea that the country has been about the battle over these ideas that are embodied in the constitution since the very beginning if we go back to the constitution, the convention itself was a battle of ideas that played out. And its an important aspect of that is that the constitution emerged was the product of several important compromises. Legislatures make compromises or legislators do in order to get anything done. Thats something that we become less good at imafraid. At least our legislators have become less good. But that is what makes policies work. And of course ports, dont operate that way. In court so many winsand somebody loses. In the legislature its ordinary politics and horsetrading and everybody goes home with something and not everything that they want. But we accept that asa legitimate output. As what we agreed to live by. Thats absolutely, its interesting the way that the discourse, if you think about now i think the clash of ideas happens on twitter in very short form. You think about the original clash of ideas, the federalist and the antifederalist, these are long form possible philosophical essays that help make the case for the constitution in the first place. They appeared in daily newspapers. That was the medium of dissemination so they were longer than todays opeds to be sure. And to generally more persuasive and more elegant way written. But they were addressed to the public. The constitution is addressed to the public. It was put out on the convention or for ratification by we the people. It was meant to be understood by the people. It was not meant to be something youhave to be a lawyer to read and understand. Clearly intels to study, but you can get a good idea of the constitution and its structure and its purposes simply by reading it. You dont need a lawyer to read a mortgage to your house already. You dont need a lawyer to read the constitution and understand. It is kind of amazing that if you buy a house, likely the document will be 5 to 10 times as long as the document sets up the legal system for the United States. Is a relatively brief document area its on five large pagesapartment , handwritten. And you point out, i love video. Theres scenes of you talking with reenactors at Independence Hall in philadelphia, engaging with the founding which in some ways is this video series is, its engaging with the founding trying to reconnect americans to the founding of the country you highlight a phrase that i know people who are involved in civics learning use this example quite a bit to talk about the importance of civics learning and thats what doctor franklin when he emerges from the convention and hes acting in the streets, what have we got, arepublic or a monarchy and he turns the person who asked the question and says a republic if you can keep it. That i think has become kind of a rallying cry for people who believe in the importance of civic learning as i know you do as certainly as a focus of our work here. In some ways do you think that that constant battle of ideas is how we keep a republic. It is, i think its wellequipped because in a republic where represented indirectly through elected officials. Not a democracy, we dont vote you and i on whether to adopt this or that law. Sure theres the occasional Referendum Initiative in california where you are and some of the other states but by and large the legislature makes the loss we just make the legislatures. And things sort themselves out in the parties, they did so almost immediately. The framers didnt anticipate that, they didnt want that but thats whathappened. And its that Constant Exchange of views and proposals and so on. That keeps the republic vibrant and contemporary. And one of the important points that comes out of the show that i think we will get into is that the constitution and the laws under it are not updated by courts or they shouldnt be anyways. There updated by the constant political interaction among the people and the representatives. Get into it a little bit because i know theres some certain parts of the show and your work that you wanted to pull out. This goes back to 1803 in the caseof marguerite versus madison and the concept of judicial review. So im going to toss it to you, why is that important forfolks to know . Its absolutely foundational. It comes in 1803 early in the republic in which chief Justice Marshall known as the great chief justice reasons as follows. We have a written constitution and in other places he says thats the greatest innovation in political life i think ever, Something Like that. We have a written constitution. Its what the founders, framers agreed to. And what the people of the states ratified. So when the Legislature Passes a law, when the Congress Passes a law or the executive takes action. You can take that law, the action, hold it up against the constitution and say wheres this authorized. Is it authorized and if it is not to be found in the constitution, then its nolan boyd. And to quote the opinion, Justice Marshall says it is exactly the duty of the judiciary to say whatthe law is. So the Congress Passes the laws, executive president and his subordinates of enforce thelaws but it is when theres a dispute up to the courts to say what the law is, what it means. And to determine whether it is complicit with the constitution so whenever somebody goes to court, challenging something as unconstitutional, they are asking for judicial review, theyre asking for the court to review the action of the congress for the executive against theconstitution and say is this really authorized. Its interesting, when i think of the judicial system, in some ways i think of the blind lady of justice pulling the scales and kind of looking and balancing how do we create that balance and really the founding of the country, the setup of the system of governmentitself is all about balance. On the one hand you have the judicial system balancing the case before it in front of the constitution. You have the three branches which in theory are designed to balance each other out. So that no one branch as too much power. Importantly the phrase goes to check and balance each other. So to give you an example, my branch the judiciary, all we can do is issue a judgment, on a piece of paper that says what we think the law is and you are ordered to do this or that. Thats it. We dont have the power of the purse, wedont have the power of the sword. We depend upon the congress to fund the judiciary. We depend upon the executive to enforce it our judgments. As simple as that. You think of the congress, they can pass the laws but they depend upon the executive to enforce those laws and depend upon the judiciary to enforce those laws. They in turn on the executive. The executive cant do anything for which funds have not been appropriated. Nothing. The judiciary as he envisioned it has blossomed into something much larger, much more influential i think. Because of so many disputes being brought to the courts. The courts are asked to resolve many more legal questions and i think ever could have been anticipated. We are much more litigious as a people. I think tocqueville noticed that as early as 1850 so as legislative as the judiciary is compared to the time i think its, i dont think its grown in influence or importance beyond more proportionally to the other branches. The whole government is much greater not just in size but in terms of what it undertakes than the framers ever could possibly have anticipated. The idea that there would be a national, a federal government with any power at all, not much but any power at all over education which was a state and local function would have been unimaginable and they framed the union. And some of those encroachments are perfectly legitimate. Others are probably based on an overly aggressive interpretation of the constitution. But they are what we have. I want to go to the next case you wanted to highlight whichis the case of South Carolina versus the United States. Why is this important and why should people know about this . The point is nothing really changed from marbury versus madison decided in 18 three to the South Carolina case decided in 1805 and even into 1935, when i say nothing changed it was understood and agreed and enforced by the court that the constitution meant what it always met. The meaning of the constitution doesnt change. The words dont change except by amendment. The words dont change, the meaning doesnt change and weve lost that as a unifying principle starting with some Court Decisions in the 1930s. That created a debate that move looms large right now particularly in the courts and in the law schools and that is how should a constitution be interpreted. If not according to how it was understood by the people who voted and then agreed to it andratified it, then what else . And the alternative of a socalled living constitution basically means whenever the judges tank ought to be adjusted to meet with contemporary problems. But thats a complete, the judiciary is a nondemocratic branch. Were not elected, were appointed. And our power is circumscribed and should be. I think rather tightly. But to say that the judges can update the constitution according to what they or 59 Supreme Court justices think is required is to assume a role of policymaking that belongs to the congress. Nonetheless, its happened. I think if you want to roll effort take youll see how the debate isframed. The written constitutionis all that matters. We the people is how it starts. Im afraid too many people worship the constitution. We are being ruled by people who have been dead for 200 years. How should the living interpret the words of the dead. The debate comes down to the documents original meaning versus a living constitution. Original is an assembly the proposition that the meaning of the text of the constitution must remain the same until its properly changed. Its actually very hard to discover often what the original meaning was because the text of the constitution often doesnt give you that much guidance. We delude ourselves if we believe there is some objective meaning or correct answer. I dont believe that, if its true i cant see the point ofhaving a written constitution in the first place. Im one of the living guys, i believe that the constitution is ever evolving. There are going to be circumstances where we have to interpret the meaning of the word. I happen to be fairly limited in how far im willing to go. Original is and does not say and stick with that through eternity. Article 5 of the constitution is typically contemplated at the constitution could and should be amended. The problem is the article 5 amendment is extremely difficult, its very hard to read i think the best way to think about a written constitution is its a starting point. And its not the ending point. Of course we do our best to understand what the text meant at the time. But for all of the debate, thats a starting point. If youre a living constitutionalist it can mean whatever you want to meet. The only living constitution is a constitution thats followed. That has almost nothing to do with modern judicial review because in all modern cases of any importance the constitution is not clear. Were not writing on a blank slate but we are figuring out what the constitution should be. The constitution does evolve but evil slowly. It evolves with time it needs to be tweaked. All of us agreed the constitution to be updated. What we disagree on is who is to do the updating. Thats what the political processes for, to resolve those difficultquestions. The less people you want to be changing that document our judges. The judiciary is not licensed by the constitution to add to or subtract from the text of the constitution. But the Supreme Court says it means is not actually the constitution. The constitution is the constitution. The idea that the constitution should evolve is really inconsistent with it being the law. The law of the land, the supreme law of the land. The alternative is a law that forever uncertain. No more stable, no more reliable and popular opinion of the time. Opinions change, mores change and words dont. So coming out you set it up and you said between 1803 and 1905 theres not much difference in how were interpreting and looking at the constitution even though there are big changes in the way the world works if you look atthe early 1800s , you have just the role of the executive. George washington for example is a different president and Teddy Roosevelt who comes in the 1900s is different from what we see today. So what, you come down on the side of original is him and explain why thats the way we should be looking atthis document. I think Justice Cavanaugh captured it. Things, there are times when the constitution has to be updated. Its, weve had 27 amendments, the first 10 were passed in the 2 years after th