My students recite the Constitutions Preamble daily to help preserve its promise

In “Democracy in America,” Alexis de Tocqueville observed in 1835 that “the greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” A compelling statement: Indeed, America is always in the process of becoming a more perfect union.While our founders laid out inspiring ideals in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Americans have constantly worked to fully live up to the documents’ promise, encapsulated in the Preamble:“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”Yet like so many of our nation’s institutional pillars, the Constitution — signed 237 years ago, on Sept.

17, 1787 — is losing its revered status. Progressive academics are making the case that the Constitution, far from being a tool to pursue our highest ideals, is in fact a threat to our freedom.Aziz Rana, a professor of law at Boston College, argues that the Constitution “has made our democracy almost unworkable.” Erwin Chemerinsky, progressive dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, sees an “American government that is increasingly dysfunctional and that has lost the confidence of the people” — and blames “much of the problem” on the Constitution.New York Times critic Jen Szalai recently published an essay calling the Constitution “essentially antidemocratic and, in this day and age, increasingly dysfunctional,” a notion that “has been gaining traction, especially among liberals.”The last caveat — “especially among liberals” — is telling. While these anti-Constitutionalists decry political polarization as one of the symptoms of what Chemerinsky describes as ...