Creating the United States

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“The evolving nature of the Constitution”

"The evolving nature of the Constitution" (118.02.00)

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In an address on the occasion of the Bicentennial of the American Constitution, Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993), the first African American justice of the United States Supreme Court, argued that the Constitution is a document that has always been and should always be subject to change. In fact, argued Marshall, the “defective” constitution had been changed many times since its writing in 1787 and that the framers of the Constitution would barely recognize its present form and interpretation.

(Transcription)

“I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever “fixed” at the Philadelphia Convention . . . ”


In an address on the occasion of the Bicentennial of the American Constitution, Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993), the first African American justice of the United States Supreme Court, argued that the Constitution is a document that has always been and should always be subject to change. In fact, argued Marshall, the “defective” constitution had been changed many times since its writing in 1787 and that the framers of the Constitution would barely recognize its present form and interpretation.