But the Constitution is not the Problem on Constitutional Disobedience

Graglia LA and Seidman LM

Abstract

Professor Seidman really doesn’t like the United States Constitution, a “deeply flawed eighteenth century document” (4) laden with “silly or pernicious” provisions (135) reflecting some “quite unlovely” motivations. (21) Observance of the Constitution, based on “the pernicious myth that we are bound in conscience to obey the commands of people who died several hundred years ago” (9), is inconsistent, he argues, not only with our “pretending that we have a polity based on popular sovereignty,” but also with “the kind of open-ended and unfettered dialogue that is the hallmark of a free society.”