Now to those three elements I've encouraged us to think about a fourth.
The constitution also encompasses the tools and techniques by
which we make constitutional arguments, and read the constitution.
This doesn't come, this little document here doesn't come with a
specific and comprehensive set of rules about how its to be interpreted.
These rules are themselves part of America's constitutional system,
and and so what I hope we, we we've seen through the course is how these different
elements that terse text, the unwritten,
higher law principles, the organization of the
system as a whole, and the tools
and techniques of interpretation all fit together.
because, even though the first half focused more on the terse text and
the second half went beyond it, I hope in the second half we always kept the text in
mind, because the text is connected to the implicit principles, the
enacting and ordaining and amending deeds, the lived constitutional
experiences the landmark cases, the iconic
symbols of, of national unity, the basic structures and institutions of
government power, the state constitutional counterparts.
The written constitution is intermittently intertwined with all
of those other elements of our constitutional culture.
And so, I hope you see that even though we've had to go beyond the
terse text, we've always tried to, to connect to it and keep it in mind.
So that was by way of reminder.
I started, with, I will thank you and I want to
remind you, two things left to advise you and to challenge you.
On advice you might say, okay, well, professor, reaching the end of this
experience, what next if we're interested in learning more, what should we do?
Well, one thing of course it's not at all
a course requirement I hope it hasn't been but
if you do want to have a, get a
lot more detailed understanding of the constitution in general
and, and of these lectures in particular feel free
to go to a local library or a local
bookstore or go online and get copies of America's
Constitution: A Biography or America's Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and
Principles We Live By.
These are, not expensive textbooks.
You can get a used copy on Amazon for, I think,
maybe 5 or $6, for the first book which is in paperback.
And the second one isn't in paperback yet, but I hope
it will be soon, and I think is $20 on Amazon.
And again remind, to remind you bookstores have them, but so do libraries.
So you do, you do not need to, to pay a penny in
order to experience the, the more detailed
information that you'll find in those books.
And you say okay, well professor, now even after I've read those books, what next?
Well, each of those books, and they're pretty hefty here, each
is about 500 pages of, of text, has 100 pages of end
notes that have all sorts of references to other books and
articles that you might read, depending on what's of interest to you.
I tried to write these to guide, the
reader and, to other, I think, interesting accounts.
And, and if you wanted one recommendation right now, you're not going to
be surprised, but you, that you can probably predict what I'm going to
say if you, the first thing probably to, to, to read in
addition to these books that I, I'd be delighted if you experienced.
The first thing of course is the Federalists Papers.
The which are again they're available actually online, for free,
you can get paperback copy for five or six bucks.