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Lepore traces rise of constitutional conservatism to anti-amendment campaigns after the New Deal
Summary
Jill Lepore argued that figures such as James Montgomery Beck promoted a 'worship' of the framers and opposed amendment in the 20th century, a strain that contributed to modern originalism and constitutional conservatism.
Lepore told the audience that the birth of constitutional conservatism followed progressive reforms and the New Deal. She singled out James Montgomery Beck, an early 20th-century U.S. solicitor general and public commentator, as a figure who urged reverence for the framers and argued amending the Constitution was improper.
"He wrote a series of very popular books that are truly daft and embarrassingly bad about how we should worship the Constitution," Lepore said of Beck, and she connected that rhetoric to later movements that championed originalist interpretations and resisted amendment as a mechanism of reform.
She said the New Deal era's political conflicts and the reaction to progressive social reforms created a constituency for constitutional conservatism that has influenced judicial and political debates since.
