Our Constitution: Landmark Interpretations of America's Governing Document

Our Constitution is a straightforward and objective volume setting forth the text of the Constitution of the United States and the most important interpretations of that document by the U.S. Supreme Court and by other actors in our constitutional system. It focuses on the most important interpretations of the Constitution - those that have shaped our understandings of the Constitution and been of greatest historical consequence and enduring significance for the nation. The emphasis is on what has proven to be foundational, historic, or enduring, not on right and wrong. This is not a work of commentary. It leaves entirely to the reader the task of evaluating the merits of the interpretations. The cases and other documents are presented here, unadorned - and uncorrupted - by critical commentary. They are edited into as concise a form as possible, to make them accessible to general readers interested in America's Constitution and the most significant interpretations of that Constitution over time. Not everything the Supreme Court has said about the Constitution (or that the authors of The Federalist, or the framing generation, or revered Presidents, or leading members of Congress have said) is a correct interpretation of the Constitution. The materials presented here simply lay out what has been said about the Constitution that has proved to be of enduring importance in shaping our understandings of the Constitution, for good or for ill. The task of interpreting the interpretations - of evaluating these interpretations of the Constitution - is for the critical reader today. This reflects the faith of the Constitution's framers that We the People of the United States would be, and remain, the masters of their own written constitution, fully capable of interpreting it for themselves, doing so correctly, and applying it faithfully.