...Jefferson, still the symbolic leader of the Democratic Republicans, remarked disparagingly that "some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence,...the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched." 12 In 1823-24, when pro-slavery advocates in South Carolina felt that an opinion rendered by the US...

...serious to require radical amendment. 3 "Some men look at constitutions," wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1816, "with sanctimonious reverence and deem them, like...the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched." 4 I believe that Madison's hope (or Jefferson's implicit fear) is being ever more realized, for Americans...

...ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 223 INDEX 227 This page intentionally left blank PRELUDE THE WISDOM OF THOMAS JEFFERSON Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc [sic] of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a...

...constitutional amendment before those particular values can be cast aside. — Antonin Scalia' Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom...

...and boisterous rallies. He believed in calm, reflective, and periodic constitutional change. "Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence,...the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched," Jefferson wrote to his friend Samuel Kercheval in 1816. "They ascribe to the men of the preceding age...