We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution

by Jill Lepore

ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, New Yorker, Smithsonian, Bookpage, and the Chicago Public Library

Longlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction



"[Lepore's] 15th book, We the People, a history of the U.S. Constitution, may be her best yet, a capacious work that lands at the right moment, like a life buoy, as our ship of state takes on water." —Hamilton Cain, Los Angeles Times


From the best-selling author of These Truths comes We the People, a stunning new history of the U.S. Constitution, for a troubling new era.


The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world but also one of the most difficult to amend. Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of history and law, explains why in We the People, the most original history of the Constitution in decades—and an essential companion to her landmark history of the United States, These Truths.



Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding—the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions—We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. “One of the Constitution’s founding purposes was to prevent change,” Lepore writes. “Another was to allow for change without violence.” Relying on the extraordinary database she has assembled at the Amendments Project, Lepore recounts centuries of attempts, mostly by ordinary Americans, to realize the promise of the Constitution. Yet nearly all those efforts have failed. Although nearly twelve thousand amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, and thousands more have been proposed outside its doors, only twenty-seven have ever been ratified. More troubling, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without recourse to amendment, she argues, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential or judicial fiat.



Challenging both the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation and the flawed theory of “originalism,” Lepore contends in this “gripping and unfamiliar story of our own past” that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. The framers never intended for the Constitution to be preserved, like a butterfly, under glass, Lepore argues, but expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution through an orderly deliberative and democratic process.



Lepore’s remarkable history seeks, too, to rekindle a sense of constitutional possibility. Congressman Jamie Raskin writes that Lepore “has thrown us a lifeline, a way of seeing the Constitution neither as an authoritarian straitjacket nor a foolproof magic amulet but as the arena of fierce, logical, passionate, and often deadly struggle for a more perfect union.” At a time when the Constitution’s vulnerability is all too evident, and the risk of political violence all too real, We the People, with its shimmering prose and pioneering research, hints at the prospects for a better constitutional future, an amended America.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, Historical, Audiobook, Law

713 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 16, 2025

About the author

Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard College Professor, and chair of Harvard's History and Literature Program. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award for the best non-fiction book on race, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; The Name of War (Knopf, 1998), winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, and the Berkshire Prize and a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Award.

A co-founder of the magazine Common-place, Lepore’s essays and reviews have also appeared in the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, American Scholar, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, the Journal of American History and American Quarterly. Her research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pew Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the Charles Warren Center, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. She has served as a consultant for the National Park Service and currently serves on the boards of the National Portrait Gallery and the Society of American Historians.
Jill lives in Cambridge,Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me a long time to read, not because it was too dense or badly written, but because I could only take so much of it at a time without becoming terribly depressed.

Lepore approaches the history of the Constitution from the point of view of attempts to amend it, starting with the Bill of Rights and ending up in 2024 with the current world in which nobody is willing to try to amend it anymore. This is both extremely enlightening, and just really sad. It will disabuse you of the notion (if you still hold it) that there every was any kind of liberal golden age where America really tried to do right by everyone.

Her thesis is that amending the Constitution is in fact a safety valve for society, which reduces the likelihood of the country exploding into civil war. At the same time, however, she demonstrates that just because an amendment happens (especially the 14th and 15th) doesn't mean it is enforced and carried out, if you have courts that are happy to ignore it, which we always have. In a way, this truth undermines her thesis, to my mind - if you have the Supreme Court making rulings like Plessy vs Ferguson then what does it matter that you have the 14th amendment? The ultimate situation is one where racism and hypocrisy rules every aspect of American life. And here we are.

Lepore tells of figures important in the history of amendment attempts who are forgotten today, including those who promulgated the toxic "originalism" that is so influential now, and she sums up the dishonesty of the originalists - history is important to them only when it supports their agenda, and they disregard it when it doesn't.

More interestingly, she continually points out how the US Constitution is backward and sclerotic compared to most other constitutions in the world, which have been rewritten, amended, and replaced many times to provide a better foundation for a healthy society.

One sad episode, concerning an amendment to abolish the electoral college, was surprising because it failed in part due to the unrelenting opposition of the NAACP who seemed to think it would dilute the voting power of the nonwhite electorate. It seems clear to me that the opposite is true.

I did find a few of her remarks on US political polarization to be a little dissonant to the overall book - for example, her opinion that in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the democratic party became a part of the tech elite and abandoned the middle class is both debatable and unrelated to her main topic.

If you can make your way through this important and informative book you will learn a lot, but you will conclude that the US has never lived up to its publicity, not for a minute.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read an advance copy of this book.

[Caitie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars. I realize this is an unpopular opinion.

While this is a fascinating and important book (and very timely unfortunately), I found it also to be too dense for me at times. Every tiny detail is added to this book and made it read very slowly and, at least for me, made the importance hard to find. When books are this dense, I sometimes wonder if I am too stupid to grasp what the author is trying to do. However, I have read books from Jill Lepore before....but this felt so much denser.

Of course, the constitution should be a living document, but in recent years it seems like it’s been undermined and ignored. I found the early chapters to be the most interesting….especially the discussion of how women and people of color were viewed.

[Jill Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

With her unique ability to blend highly detailed history with compelling narrative, Jill Lepore has yet again crafted a fascinating and enlightening book that educates and entertains in equal measure. I am a lawyer by training, so much of the factual bases behind the development and implementation of the Constitutional conventions and technical amendment process were familiar to me - although she dug deeper in a number of areas than I recalled ever doing in law school. Where I found the book most compelling was in the examples of personal involvement of those either directly responsible for the drafting or consideration of the various amendments (adopted and discarded) over time. Pairing this with her marvelous skill at peeking behind the curtain of political and judicial machinations, and presentations of thought-provoking challenges to conventional wisdom (or lack thereof), produces a whole that is so much more than the sum of its parts.

It's a dense book, as all of her works are. That's not to say that it is at all inaccessible, even without a law degree or background in American judicial and political history, but to point out that it is thoughtful and requires a thoughtful reading - and that isn't a speedy process, even for a fast reader. I personally agree with her central premise - that the Constitution was intended to be reviewed and revised as necessary - and found her perspective and supporting evidence persuasive. We live in an era of bizarre political manipulations, which extend into the judicial and interpretive realms with startling frequency. Knowing the history and reminding people of the stated intentions of the oft-cited-as-though-they-were-omniscient Framers is, I think, essential to ensuring a sensible and rational way forward - a path that seems all too lightly trodden these days...

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my obligation-free review copy.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a non-fiction book about the US Constitution, amendments to it, and how this document was read back then and today. The Constitution, adopted in 1787, is viewed by a lot of people almost like a holy writ, which others emulate and which is so genially written that it kept the balance of powers for over two centuries. At the same time, it turns out that one of the Founding Fathers, Jefferson wrote to Madison in 1789 that “no society can make a perpetual constitution,” because “the earth belongs always to the living generation” and that therefore the United States ought to hold a new constitutional convention every nineteen years, once every generation. Moreover, the current approach of constitutional interpretation is known as originalism. The word originalism did not enter the English language until 1980, and it had virtually no currency before 1987. It means that the only way to interpret the Constitution is to read it the way a probate judge reads a dead man’s last will and testament, i.e., using only information that remained from that man (letters, interviews, etc.) and only related to the question at hand. Therefore, for example, while president Washington’s letters are of importance but there should be no interest in letters written to Washington, by his wife Martha (where she insisted than women should have rights too), say, or by a dirt-poor Virginia farmer or a carpenter’s apprentice in Richmond, or by a Chippewa woman in western Pennsylvania, or by any of the more than three hundred people held in human bondage at the Washingtons’ plantation in Virginia. So, this isn’t taking history into account, but merely nitpicking from a small sample of (sometimes contradictory) works.

To amend it to make it better. With only twenty-seven amendments, the U.S. Constitution has one of the lowest amendment rates in the world. Moreover, the largest number of amendments were passed by Congress in 1789, in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War. These twelve amendments, ten of which, later known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified by the states by 1791. No amendments were ratified in the sixty-one years between 1804 and 1865, and then, at the end of the Civil War, three in five years.

However, since 1789, Americans have submitted nearly 10’000 petitions and countless letters, postcards, and phone and email messages to Congress calling for or opposing constitutional amendments, and they have introduced and agitated for thousands more amendments in the pages of newspapers and pamphlets, from pulpits, at political rallies, on websites, and over social media. Some 12’000 amendments have been formally introduced on the floor of Congress. Only 33 of them have been approved to date.

It can be thought that questions of women’s rights, equality of people disregarding race and color, slavery – all of them weren’t included because the founders hadn’t thought about them. It isn’t true. Say the slavery was held out of the constitution because already at that time it was the question that would have stopped either southern slaveowners or northern abolitionists from supporting the constitution. Or equal rights for women – I guess we all know the cry ‘no taxation without representation’, but back in the 18th century, there were people stating: women with property of their own, who were either widows or unmarried, had no representation and, without it, ought not to be obligated to pay taxes.

Sometimes supporters of a purposefully vague text voiced what seemed obvious to them but not for us: The Constitution lacked a bill of rights. So what? It also didn’t guarantee a man the right to shave his beard or explain how “to take the measure of a man’s breeches” or specify that the president of the United States “shall be of the male gender.” Were these omissions really problems? “What shall we think if, in the progress of time, we should come to have an old woman at the head of our affairs? What security have we that he shall be a white man? What would be the national disgrace if . . . a vile negro should come to rule over us?”

There is a lot on amendments from abolishing slavery to a right to bear arms and how the attitudes changed over the years. The USA needs a new constitution!

[Sonny · Rating 5 out of 5]

― “By far the most radical innovation of the U.S. Constitution, and of state constitutions, was the provision they made for their own repair and improvement by the people themselves, to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.
This method for improvement is called amendment. In English, the verb amend goes back to the twelfth century, when it meant to correct a fault; to repair an omission, to fix what’s broken; or to improve in a moral sense: to make something better. The word shares a root, four of its five letters , and almost the entirety of its meaning, with the verb mend.”
― Jill Lepore, We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution

The U.S. Constitution resulted from clashes between the federalists and anti-federalists over the Articles of Confederation. Despite their differences, the two sides agreed on fundamental principles that influence how we interpret the Constitution today. Whether it’s abortion, immigration, or gun violence, debates about the meaning of the Constitution are a constant of American life. Amid the country’s deep political polarization, the 25th amendment that addresses Presidential vacancy, disability and removal from office has become a frequent topic of discussion, especially after the January 6th insurrection and the election of two septuagenarians who would become octogenarians while in office.

With We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, Harvard history professor Jill Lepore (These Truths), has provided a highly readable history of the Constitution, as well as a useful guide to understand the several controversies surrounding the Constitution.

A key focus of Lepore’s history is the difficulty in amending the Constitution. While the framers included Article V to “revise, reform, correct, update, and improve the Constitution,” it has proven “infinitely more difficult” to amend the Constitution than the founders intended.

― “At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, Virginia delegate George Mason, pointing out that everyone knew the Constitution was imperfect, argued that ‘amendments therefore will be necessary, and it will be better to provide for them, in an easy, regular and constitutional way than to trust to chance and violence.’”
― Jill Lepore, We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution

Lepore points out that almost all efforts to amend the Constitution fail, and success often takes decades. For long stretches of American history, amending the Constitution has been effectively impossible. In describing the sometimes difficult path for some amendments, Lepore reviews the 13th amendment that abolished slavery, and 19th amendment that established women’s suffrage. These are but two among the many proposed amendments that never saw ratification. But then the founders never anticipated the rise of political parties or polarized politics. Despite broad public support, at least two amendments have failed to pass: the Equal Rights Amendment and an amendment to end the Electoral College. Since the Constitution was written, thousands of proposed amendments have failed.

Lepore concludes her book with a focus on the radical legal philosophy of originalism, the theory of interpreting legal texts holding that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted as it was understood at the time of its adoption. She examines how the Supreme Court moved from the activist philosophy of Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1950s and 1960s to the doctrine of originalism espoused by associate justice Antonin Scalia. Lepore clearly believes that originalism has undermined the process of constitutional evolution. After all, the Constitution was written for white men; it disenfranchised women, free blacks, slaves and Native Americans.

The amendments to the Constitution have tended to come in waves. The first twelve Amendments, including the Bill of Rights, were added by 1804. Then there were no amendments for more than half a century. In the wake of the Civil War, three important Amendments were added between 1865 and 1870: the 13th (outlawing slavery), the 14th (mainly protecting equal civil rights), and the 15th (forbidding racial discrimination in voting). After the Civil War Amendments, another forty-three years passed until the Constitution was amended again. Four more Amendments (16th through 19th) were added between 1913 and 1920. Seven more amendments were adopted at pretty regular intervals between 1920 and 1971, but except for one unusual amendment (27th), there have been no amendments to the Constitution since 1971. Today, both progressives and conservatives are seeking change through the courts rather than through amending the Constitution.

As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the nation (2026) and the 250th anniversary of the Constitution (2037), We the People provides readers with a history of the Constitution that is needed at a time when constitutional change becomes more difficult. Lepore aims to look at the history of the Constitution through a wide lens. Hopefully, it is a work that will lead to a public discussion that is good for democracy.

[Dawn Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I need to emphasize that this is a very important book. Knowing the history of one of the most important documents ever is extremely important, especially now, so this book really is a much needed and timely read.

That said,, some of this book, FOR ME [I need to note that I am a history lover/reader and always strive to learn more, absorb more, and often read things that are just a touch beyond me because how can we grow and continue to learn without that stretching of the mind?], was...well, above my pay-grade, and I struggled. Some of the book [again, FOR ME] was also very dull [there are quite a few side-story ventures that confused me more than they enhanced my reading/understanding of the book], and several times I found myself checking out, and then having to go back and re-listen to what I missed [due to the eBook ARC having NO useable table of contents, I also struggled when needing to look things up, or to catch up when I had zoned out and was beyond frustrated at this] and that was also very frustrating at times.

However, I DID learn a lot [some I knew, most I did not, much was frustrating because apparently we have NOT learned from the Founders mistakes and I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes, groaning out loud and surprisingly, in tears], and ultimately I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read the fascinating history of this amazing document.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jill Lepore, and W. W. Norton & Company/Liveright for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Claudia]

Walking through Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), with all four of my really grand grandchildren, during the summer of 2025, my eye caught a lecture to be presented by Jill Lepore to promote her book: "We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution". I made a note to attend; but when I called for tickets, I was informed that the event was a student-only event. Fortunately, Ms. Lepore was scheduled also at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Music Hall on the same date. This lecture was an emotional exploration of the history of myriad efforts to amend the Constitution.

In 1971, the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which lowered the national voting age from 21 to 18, was ratified to permit the right to vote to those "old enough to fight". My eldest brother, then still serving in Vietnam, had not been able to vote when drafted from Penn State at age 20. Finally countless others like him, drafted but denied the right to participate in the elections that sent them to war, could vote.

In her book, Jill Lepore stresses the idea of "the philosophy of amendment", the capacity to mend our ways without violence. She sees the original Constitution, consisting of 4,400 words, as an evolving blueprint of ideas scrolled out over two centuries. As a nation, she urges us to continue to debate, accumulate interpretations, and propose amendments as we continue to evolve in ways not foreseen back in the day.

[Marks54 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Jill Lepore is a distinguished and prolific historian who has written a new history of the U.S. Constitution. She tells a detailed story that starts with efforts to amend the Articles of Confederation and extends up to the present and the coming of the second Trump administration. I cannot begin to summarize this long book that is in part a political and social history of the US along with a history of the Constitution. But I can offer some observations.

To start with, Lepore is a disciplined historian who tells her stories clearly and effectively. This is not a legal analysis, although it provides a good start for anyone seeking a legal approach. There is a lot of material being presented here and I suspect that most readers will learn something new from this deep dive into Constitutional history.

In terms of how she focuses her story, Lepore takes the perspective of amendment or more generally how the US Constitution has changed over the course of its life. Now change in her story goes beyond the formal amendment process embodied in Article V. (BTW - be sure to have a copy of the Constitution handy.) Constitutional change can occur through Amendment, judicial interpretations, the passing of new legislation, the holding of constitutional conventions, or even through the persistent interpretation of some constitutional elements one way rather than another. Perhaps the most impressive dimension of the book is how Lepore traces the interactions of these different types of change over the course of the history. At some points, some types of changes predominate, while at others they become infeasible. At other times there might be multiple approaches to change, along with the noting of strange bedfellows - different and clashing partisan interests that may support (or oppose) changes at a given time.

Keeping track of the people highlighted in the book is a challenge. Even more challenging for me was keeping track of all of the legal cases that we mentioned. In additional to all of this, Professor Lepore notes a large number of attempts at changing the Constitution, such as through new amendments. The vast majority of these change efforts failed and the impossibility of amendment is clearly noted as a major problem at key points in the narrative. (Not all points, however. The role of Birch Bayh in amending the Constitution more recently is a story I was unfamiliar with and found fascinating.)

The overall tone of the story is not entirely positive and real change seems daunting. However, Lepore closes the story by noting how the US Constitution has lasted for a very long time, but has outlasted many if not most of the other constitutions in the world that were modelled on it. It appears that the life of a major government constitution is a difficult one - one that does not age well. Given that, the limitations apparent in Professor Lenore’s history are placed in context and are easier to appreciate even while working for change.

This is a superb book and well worth working through, especially in the current political environment.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read book. This is packed with so much good information about the Constitution and the amendement process. This is definitely one I will continue revisiting because I will probably need that many times to internalize all this information.

[Bruce Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rtc

[Joseph Montuori · Rating 4 out of 5]

We the People is a long (and I mean LONG!) history of the U.S. Constitution from its writing to 2024. Lepore’s sweeping work is written from the perspective of amending it: the 12,000 amendments that have been proposed, and the individuals and groups (the formerly enslaved, women, Native Americans, right, left, etc.) who proposed or supported amendments. We the people. That’s a brilliant approach to a topic that is so central to U.S. history. (Don’t fret, there’s plenty of judicial interpretations from SCOTUS too. It’s just that this is an epic story with a big cast.)

That raises another positive attribute: Lepore’s storytelling. Spoiler alert: constitutional history can be dry and tedious. Fortunately, Lepore’s incredible research and lively writing style brought many stories to life, avoiding an overly academic tone. Despite this, I did find it difficult to finish the 700+ pages. In fact, at 1/3 of the way through, I had to return my library copy, bought the audio and listened to the rest (~ 12 hours). That helped, but I personally would have preferred a shorter work.

Another plus: despite my background in teaching U.S. history and government, I learned so much more than I expected. For example, the nearly countless attempts to amend the federal constitution; the post-revolutionary era history of state constitutional revision and conventions; and Native American efforts to amend their way into sovereignty and their own fascinating constitution writing.

Overall, Lepore’s unique historical perspective — that of “we the people,” writ large — made this a rewarding effort. Especially in this era, it’s important to remember that a polarized United States is not unique or new. History echoes. We’ve never been here before, but we’ve most certainly been divided, angered, and violent. And at other times we’ve managed to expand greater justice to a wider swath of society (alas, not this book’s topic!) And when that isn’t happening, history also reminds us that this too shall pass.

[Tina Panik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed for Library Journal; full review appears there.

[Ashley Denktas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I genuinely enjoyed this book way more than I was expecting. I read it via audiobook and the author did a great job reading in a way that kept me engaged despite what I was afraid would dift into a textbook rendition of history. However, this goes way beyond the textbooks and what is taught in American schools, which makes sense as this is being written by someone with a PHD in history/ a reporter. Lepore does a wonderful job making a huge span of history approachable for the layman person, arguing her point about the amendablity of the constitution, and its impact on the world and how we live in it. Additionally, I enjoyed learning way more about how different groups, African Americans, Women, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, engaged with the constitution throughout history. In school, these stories honestly felt like they were a paragraph in a textbook unit - and seeing the whole story and its evolution was wonderful. Honestly, I am ashamed I didn't know several things in this book.

Lepore goes in depth describing how the constitution was written and the particular phrasing that was debated - which would have a profound impact on the world. These debates were not just of the founding fathers - but with whole towns and locales being completely engaged. Men with property were who turned out to be what encompassed "we the people" but during the 1780s was a time of political debate where everyone was involved. It was also interesting to see the evolution of the arguement on who was included in "we the people" throughout the nation's history. Honestly up until the 1920s, American society seemed brimming with constant discussions about how our government worked and seemed to have way more highly engaged citizens.

I honestly want to reread this book in physical format to highlight and really take notes since there was so much information to take in, and I don't think that I can completely internalize it on the first read. It did energize me and make me realize that we the people do need to be active participants in our government. However, in American society it seems so taboo to talk about politics or how to be engaged - I hope that we reignite an "American" way to debate and discuss governance. Our constitution was a series of compromises (albeit some REALY BAD ONES) and until modern times, many elements of our law were also until the rise of major party partisanship.

Lepore showcases how the Constitution is extremely hard to change/ amend despite Article 5 outlining a process. This lack of ability to change has produced conflict and ultimately forced people, congress, the courts to pursue change through other branches of government which allows decisions to be overturned or read differently pending who is on the Supreme Court. I think every American should read this book, as it really shows us how we got to our current political climate. Our founding fathers even thought the constitution was too hard to amend, but ended up moving forward with the Constituion after months at the constitutional convention.

I took several notes on my phone during this book, but some highlights are:
1. America needs to figure out a way to allow the constitution to change with time - as our founders could not have anticipated the problems we have now. That is why in my opinion originalism cannot be how we interpret the constitution - we need to write down how we approach new situations. It was a requirement that the first state constitutions be written down, therefore we need to allow amendment and write down new changes. Do I know how? No.
2. Both parties seem to use systems to their advantage when they have majority which allows for huge swings. This is very clearly seen in history - but it was interesting seeing the accounts of specific issues explored by Lepore. Additionally, Maddison edited his notes about the constitutional convention for YEARS leading up to their release - changing them to fit his opinions how how elements should be interpreted. These now also impact how laws and rulings are made to this day since judges may use that to help figure out how they interpret the constitution.
3. The electoral college has been debated for so long, yet we have not figured out a way on how to approach it. Several elections now have shown this is something that lawmakers need to address. Do I know how to approach this as well? No. Popular vote is something I personally would like, but I do see how it would allow another divide that already exists (urban/rural) to further be exacerbated in American society. However, as seen in the book there are times in American history where the minority seems to have more sway than the majority.
4. I didn't realize Regan also used the slogan Make America Great Again and how his presidency also had huge effects on the world and even individual elements of my life. (My American history class didn't really fully go in depth post 1920s which again I am ashamed to say I didn't really go and investigate further myself.).

I think every American should read this book. It made me honestly quite scared for the future, but also made me want to engage with our government as fellow Americans did during the nation's founding. (Side note I loved listening to the audiobook before bed because the author had a really good reading voice, it was informative, and after about 30 mins it would help me fall to sleep. This is not to say the book was boring! I usually listen to books before bed, and as someone with insomnia - it was a double boon for my education and sleep).

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Constitution is ink on parchment. It is forty-four hundred words. And it is, too, the accrued set of meanings that have been made of those words, the amendments, the failed amendments, the struggles, the debates—the course of events—over more than two centuries. It is not easy, but it is everyone’s."
In We the People, Leppre looks at the history of constitutions, primarily the US one, but also including some references and examinations of them from various state and sovereign nations, including those of Indigenous nations. The context of the work is looking at the document as a living entity - something that was established with a clear understanding that it wasn't perfect and would need to evolve over time -- hence a strategy of amending it was built into the framework. This is a dense but readable work. The first half was a little slower going for me as it focused on the amendments that both passed and failed through the late 1800's. The second half dove deeply into more recent political history and having personal context to many of the issues discussed made the reading really thought provoking. I also appreciated that she explored both ways the constitution evolves - through amendment and judicial review. I think I would need a second pass through this one to really have a more thorough understanding of all the concepts. A side note about reading this -- it is one of those reads that gives you really interesting historical context to contemporary issues, most notably for me the impact of polarization. This was an excellent read to kick off #NonfictionNovember.

[Laura Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one took me awhile to read: not only was it lengthy, but filled with information that took me time to digest.
Her main premise centers on the constitution and its creation, amending process, and impact on the nation over its history. She delves into influential figures and movements, key battles that have impacted the nation, and spends time adding insights into the constitutions of states and territories of the US.
I found it fascinating to read this now as our country faces such polarization and strife, especially in our court system and reading of the law. Words like “original intent,” take on new meaning when it seems that even the framers weren’t sure what was relevant and necessary and could agree on little.

And the politicians who now use the constitution as a weapon rather than for its original purpose, freedom , a guide, a compass for leaders, would do well to read this book and learn a few things from the road this document has traveled since its inception.

[Chris P · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly amazing book. If human beings are defined by their failures as much as their successes, then so too, should be the constitution. This book doesn’t so much as look at the content of the constitution, but in how the sausage was made. Looking at the effort and intent of successful and failed constitutional amendments we can truly get an idea of how our government was formed. I don’t think anyone can claim to understand the constitution without having read a book like this. I cannot recommend this book enough.

[Mike Steinharter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jill Lepore is a tremendous historian and brilliant writer. This history of the US constitution covers a wide range of characters and the impacts on everything from slavery to women’s rights to native Americans, abortion and guns. It gets a little technical/wonky at times but stay with her it’s worth it. (Audible, read by the author)

[Chad Manske · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jill Lepore’s “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution” delivers a sweeping, engrossing account of America’s evolving foundational document—just in time for the country’s 250th anniversary. Lepore, a Harvard historian renowned for “These Truths,” approaches the Constitution not as a static artifact, but as a living record, forever shaped by the restless ambitions of ordinary citizens as much as by the political elite. The result is both a work of urgent civic relevance and a masterclass in historical storytelling. The central thesis of Lepore’s book is that the process of amending the Constitution—intended as a mechanism for peaceful change—has grown so glacial and rare that it now threatens the nation’s political adaptability. Only 27 amendments have passed since 1789, despite nearly 12,000 attempts, and none since 1971. Lepore documents not just the amendments that succeeded, but the thousands that failed, offering stories of everyday Americans who dared to tinker with the machinery of government. Through archival deep-dives and colorful digressions (including unexpected forays into American Indian constitutions and the constitutional history of Hawai’i), she widens the lens beyond the usual narratives framed by legal scholars and originalist judges. What makes the book feel strikingly current is Lepore’s seamless integration of contemporary episodes—right up through the 2024 election—showing how constitutional disputes remain at the heart of national debate. Lavishly illustrated and rich in primary sources, the book is as enjoyable to read as it is enlightening. Lepore’s prose is sharp and clear, never dry, and brims with the urgency of a historian who believes that civic knowledge is both fragile and essential. “We the People” ultimately argues for a renewed culture of amending and reimagining the Constitution—a radical idea, yet one rooted in the founders’ original intentions. The book stands as a timely call for Americans to reclaim ownership over their most important civic inheritance.

[Jason Bednar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This deep dive into the history of the US Constitution shows exactly why it has to be a living document open to amendment and/or change. Scalia was an opportunist but not the first one. Politicians are generally not the best people to care for our people and the world.

[Al Lock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent history that focuses on the amendment concept and process in American history. Highly recommended, especially if read in conjunction with The Summer of 1787 by David Stewart. The only point that I found amusing was the misunderstanding of what militia are.

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow this was really an all encompassing review of the US Constitution. How it was formed and how what it is today was never a forgone conclusion. I appreciated the explanation of Article V and how important and underutilized it has been. This book is definitely for Constitutional Law nerds and at times dense, but in my opinion well worth the read. Just make sure you have the time!

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

We decided if the constitution is good or bad.

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

The definitive book on the US Constitution. Starts off incredibly and a bit unnecessarily detailed, but I found the groove about 150 pages in. A fascinating subject and a great read.

[Sara Goldenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was easy to understand! Appreciated it!!!

[Weston Hyter · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The people have an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their government whenever it is found to be adverse or inadequate to the purposes of its institution"

--James Madison
Failed 1st Amendment to the US Constitution.
Introduced in 1789
========================

To Constitute is to become or establish.
To Amend is to mend, correct, repair, and improve.

[Jesse Field · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lepore's latest builds out chapter 4 of These Truths: A History of the United States into something we could call a history of constitutionalism, but also a history of amendment, which is to say a history of a very, very few successes amongst many failures to amend the country's fundamental laws, the federal Constitution of 1789. State constitutions, on the other hand, have proven much more amendable, at least until recent times; amendment has also rapidly declined on the state level, with no state constitutional conventions happening since 1992.

Amidst this broad story of the death of the spirit of amendment, we have many sub-stories of great interest, but which branch off, then reconnect with the main road, at various locations along the way: the struggle for women's political agency, the struggle for Black American personhood. The complex battles of various native American tribes, nations and organizations for political agency, against a mercurial federal government. The shifting undercurrents of American conservative values, from restrictions on Blacks and women to paranoia about new gender, sexual, and reproductive freedoms.

"It's a lot," as we say so often, these days. My takeaway from all this is that the book is important but complex, which means that those of us who are able to read and digest it, and possibly have the time to analyze it, should help spread some the key ideas that shine at the core of Lepore's stories. It's up to us to acquaint ourselves with enough of our history to meet us where we are and find the nodes in the system ripe for leverage actions.

Here is a review of one section of the book: the opening of "Part Four: The End of Amendment, 1961-2016," and "chapter 11. The Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments."

Part Four opens with the scene of Bea Arthur and Betty White arriving at the White House in a hot air balloon in 1987, as part of celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. This image suggests the shallow crassness of mass media as tools to project simplistic patriotic values, masking the deeper power conflicts playing out in the political and social systems. Conservative legal theorists like Robert Bork were developing the claims of "originalism" as a strategy to co-opt the liberal approach of eschewing amendment in favor of using the courts to achieve desired change. In a sense, the Dobbs decision overturning Roe vs. Wade is the paradigmatic reversal signaling conservative success in taking over the courts. But the trade-off of this success has been ever-greater polarization, and declining approval for the courts, the legislature, and the government in general. Shockingly, President Trump is on the record expressing doubts whether it is even his job to uphold the Constitution.

But before Lepore tells us more about how originalism emerged, came to dominate the Supreme Court, and was crucial in the reasoning for the Dobbs decision (all of these and more are the subjects of chapter 13), she first covers the last round of major amendments to the Constitution, the twenty-third to twenty-sixth amendments, ratified between 1961 and 1971, with fierce ground-game leadership in the form of Senator Birch Bayh, Democrat, of Indiana.

The momentum for such changes was waning by the 1970s. Bayh's own favored amendment, to repeal the Electoral College in favor of election of the President by popular election, failed to pass despite wide popularity. So did the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have enshrined women's political agency in the Constitution. We go deep into the processes whereby progressive ideals came to be obstructed by a matrix of political and social forces in Lepore's section on how newly energized far-right legal theories pushed against the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, which is to say, enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment. The doctrine of originalism was first written about by legal hacks like Martin Diamond and Alfred Avins. Where in other places in her writing, Lepore shows that a radical voice can influence a moderate one, in this case she finds that a moderate-seeming voice, Diamond, generating an idea which a more radical ("less nuanced") voice, can amplify and spread. Diamond was a Straussian apparently enamored of the major ideas and values of the Enlightenment era; Avins argued against the legality of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, on the ground that it wouldn't have been made in the Enlightenment era.

Diamond had pretentions to being a scholar of history, but failed to judge historical sources in context or with enough range to justify his claims, Lepore accuses, speaking for the whole field. And Avins was just a zealout and power monger who played consiliare roles to the likes of Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina (Democrat, turned Republican during the Nixon administration, but he was consistently a voice for white supremacism). Such Southern, pro-segregationist voices had enormous national-level power in the 1970s; Nixon coveted George Wallace voters. To an extent, both the abolishing of the Electoral College and the ERA, as well as other efforts at amendment, fell victim to Southern machinations to prevent Black voting and advancement. (Several of my friends dismiss historical exposition with the comment, "It's all racism." I poo-poo their lack of historical curiosity, but then read 600 pages only to find out they were right?)

This is all in chapter 11, by the way. And there's more. I've puzzled over the last two sections, and I still think I want to read this chapter, yet again. It's important, if difficult. I think, temporarily, that to understand Lepore's vision here, we have to observe, but then let go of, the details of the political maneuvers, and return to the big ideas of the likes of Leo Strauss and Martin Diamond: the New Right has an intellectual mask that presents as invested in the ideals of the Enlightenment, or at least their interpretation of such ideals. Such theorists are not political or social leaders, of course, but they give cover to the efforts to oppose laws advancing the equality of Black Americans and women, among others.

And then it's big ideas that return to Lepore's focus when she ends the chapter on brief stops in the Indian Rights Movement and the Environmental Rights Movement. These are signs of a whole new intellectual framework struggling to emerge. We get, for example, a tantalizing glimpse of the writings of Standing Rock Sioux activist Vine Deloria:

The U.S. Constitution was founded to protect
property and had been revised to protect rights, Deloria argued, but either way, it rested on a commitment to individualism and yet understood people of color only as groups (Indians, Blacks, Mexicans, Chinese). “We have never had a ‘peoplehood’ in this country because we have always been tied to a barren conception of man,” he wrote.

Similarly, the first Earth Day, and efforts at an Environmental Amendment (“Every person has the inalienable right to a decent environment") reflect an effort, even if a confused and ultimately unpopular effort, to re-think the responsibilities of persons to each other and the earth outside of Enlightenment-era epistemology.

There you go: I offer one chapter, so far. Imperfectly understood. And there is so much more going on in this book. I often write in these entries that I will go back and review such and such a book. But to live in these times, and to find writing like this coming out, makes the need to review, analyze, and apply, all the more pressing.

[Fanchen Bao · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a while to work through Jill Lepore’s We The People, but it was well-worth the effort. The book unraveled the inner-workings of the shiny edifice that was the U.S. Constitution, and the way the sausages were made was far from what I had been taught during my formative years.

I recall that one of my history teachers used to tout the U.S. Constitution as the greatest and most important piece of works ever created by mankind because it has been standing strong and mostly unaltered for more than 200 years! What a showing of the framers’ foresightedness and the ultra-stability of the U.S. political system! Yet, that appearance hides the fact that people have been raising all sorts of oppositions against the Constitution for as long as it has been in effect, with thousands of amendment attempts thrown at it. The only reason that the Constitution still stands mostly unscathed is not that it is well-designed or that the U.S. political system is marvelous, but that it is simply too damn difficult to alter even if the will from THE PEOPLE is overwhelmingly strong. This, honestly, is against what the framers had intended.

It seems to me that there are at least two stages (that my untrained brain can recognize) of the U.S. Constitution. The first stage was its infancy, where the enthusiasm of tinkering with it was strong and the likelihood of amending it was high. Unfortunately, that stage also corresponded to the darker period of the U.S. history, so a lot of the arguments revolved around how to maintain a moral high ground, lest the European snobs laughed at us, while still be ambiguous enough to allow slavery (they called it Compromise, and there were so many versions of it). Or how to grant Black people rights on paper but still be flexible enough to deny those rights in real practice (poll tax, literacy test, etc.). Or how to reconcile the language in the Constitution such that allowing Black men to vote would not open the door to allowing women to vote. This stage clearly shows that when the framers, some of them slave owners themselves, declared “we the People”, they had never meant to include everyone. “We the People” was no more than a golf club — only White men with property were allowed. So to put faith in the Constitution as a vehicle in search of equality and human rights seems wishful thinking.

The second stage of the U.S. Constitution happened when the whimsical of politics raised the Constitution to a level of sacrament, only to be revered, not to be updated. This is so bizarre. While I understand the need to hold a religious text as scared, as it can contain wisdoms and teachings from a deity, the U.S. Constitution was just a creation of men, men with limited perspective and understanding of the world no matter how wise they were. Yet you are telling me that the decisions they made more then two centuries ago, some intentionally ambiguous (you know, to compromise for slavery), must be the studied and followed to the T for the society today? How could anyone say this with a straight face?

Obviously, the Constitution does NOT always work and has not worked well for a long time. Hence the need for amendment. Article V already sets the bar pretty high for amendment, but the ever more politicizing of what I consider to be common sense demands (gun regulation, Child Labor Amendment, Equal Rights Amendment, abolishing Electoral College, etc.) makes it even harder to update the Constitution via “the right way”. So, work-arounds through the Supreme Court were used, first by the Progressives (the Warren Court), and later by the Conservatives, who aim to reverse all the decisions in the Progressive era.

Originalism is the crown jewel of how the Conservatives work around to “amend” the “amended” Constitution. It is so convenient, isn’t it? None of the new rights enumerated by the Progressives, no matter how common sense they are, have ever appeared on the Constitution. So, if we interpret the Constitution by its original meaning or intent, these new rights must be, by definition, unconstitutional. In this sense, originalism is less of a serious school of thought than a thinly veiled, yet highly effective, political tool to align the judiciary with the Conservative agenda.

In another sense, originalism is an act of cowardliness. It shows that one would rather rely ENTIRELY on the past when faced with a new situation than discover new meanings more appropriate for the present. Relying on the past is simpler, less risky. All you need to do is to go through ancient text and point at an obscure sentence and say “see, our ancestors never said we could do it this way, so you doing it this way now is not allowed”, job done. Looking forward is much harder. It requires courage and takes responsibility, because you need to not only understand the past, but also device new meaning for the future. You will have to act like the framers (in this sense, the framers at least had some balls, despite being racists and misogynists), but that seems too much to ask of some of the current Justices, who are either politically compromised or morally corrupt.

I consider originalism a very dangerous thing, because it tries to solidify the Constitution as something Americans must worship. Not a religious person myself, even I understand that nothing other than the deity, which is the only thing that attains perfection, should ever be worshiped, not a person nor a piece of text conjured by men. Worship blinds our eyes and encourages the behavior of cherry-picking texts that support our views whereas ignoring the texts on the contrary. A country or people always looking backward for validation will never progress. I agree with the view that the Constitution is a living thing, which means what matters is its spirit and guiding principles, not the texts, punctuations, or what the framers were thinking in 1787. It should be perfectly okay to add new things or even contradict the text if the principles are maintained (case in point, Black and women suffrage, same-sex marriage, etc.). The fact that it has always been hard to do so is not that the new meanings are flawed, but that the Constitution itself is too rigid. Yet, originalism wants to make the U.S. Constitution even more set in stone. That, to me, sounds like a death sentence to the greatest experiment in the human history.

Check out the Medium version of this review for A LOT OF memorable quotes.

[Nick Surprise · Rating 4 out of 5]

As in her previous book (“These Truths: A History of the United States), in “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution,” Jill Lepore masterfully distills decades of history into a single volume. I found most fascinating the section on Hawai’i and its horrifying constitutional history.

Lepore’s main argument is that amendment underlies our constitutional history and that the U.S. Constitution was intended to be altered (fixed?) by future generations. The theme is interesting and present throughout the book, though it sometimes feels that Lepore is trying too hard to force it into the narrative. At its best, Lepore’s book demonstrates how arduous the amendment process can be, how potential amendments have failed along the way, and how some have turned away from the amendment process and towards the judiciary for relief.

I finished the book wanting more discussion on the current debates regarding how to fix the amendment process. Although Lepore sheds light on state constitutions, which are far too often neglected in favor of the U.S. Constitution, “We the People” was missing a discussion on how state constitutions can (and should) be more protective of individual rights.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Erick Chomskis · Rating 3 out of 5]

America Didn't Stop Amending the Constitution Because of Originalism
By Erick Chomskis

Jill Lepore’s We the People offers a compelling look at America’s constitutional identity crisis, arguing that the nation once amended its Constitution with confidence but now avoids the amendment process altogether. She is right about the symptom: the United States has effectively abandoned Article V. But she misdiagnoses the cause. The real problem isn’t originalism. It’s the erosion of federalism and the long neglect of the Tenth Amendment.

Lepore highlights a striking fact: the Constitution has been amended only once since 1971. For most of American history, amendments were the people's tool to resolve national debates,from suffrage to civil rights to structural reform. Today, that shared civic practice has collapsed. Instead of amending the Constitution, we fight through courts, political branding, and competing national narratives.

But when Lepore explains why amendments have vanished, she looks in the wrong direction. She points to the rise of originalism and the ideological battles surrounding constitutional interpretation. She suggests that Americans became polarized over how to read the Constitution, making amendment politically impossible.

But this flips the cause and effect.

The courts became the center of political life only because the federal government absorbed powers the Constitution never delegated to it.

The Tenth Amendment, the most overlooked line in the entire document, states plainly: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution… are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” James Madison echoed this in Federalist 45, explaining that federal powers were meant to be “few and defined,” while state powers were “numerous and indefinite.”

In that system, most disputes were supposed to remain local. States could govern education, commerce within their borders, health policy, policing, and moral issues as they saw fit. Constitutional amendments were needed only for truly national questions.

But when Washington began deciding everything, education standards, healthcare rules, environmental policies, state funding formulas, even local zoning through federal grants, every political disagreement became a national one. And once every dispute is national, amending the Constitution becomes almost impossible. The stakes are too high, the coalitions too broad, and the divides too deep.

This is the real reason Article V stopped functioning.

Lepore is right that America needs to revive the amendment process. Where she goes wrong is in suggesting that originalism is the barrier. A judiciary that interprets the Constitution according to its text is not the problem. In fact, that judicial modesty is essential to preserving democratic legitimacy. When judges begin to “update” the Constitution through creative interpretation, political power shifts from the people to the courts. Five unelected justices end up making policy for 330 million Americans.

That is not how a republic governs itself.

Lepore argues that “the amendment process is the people’s rightful mechanism for constitutional change.” On this, she is absolutely correct. The Constitution must be able to adapt, but only through the process the Framers wrote into it. Courts are not the amendment process. Elections are. State legislatures are. Congress is. The American people are.

The irony is that Lepore and originalists share more ground than she admits: both believe constitutional meaning should not be reinvented by the judiciary. Both believe the people must have the final say. Both believe the amendment process gives the Constitution its legitimacy.

What she overlooks is that the amendment process cannot function unless the Tenth Amendment does. Restore federalism, and you restore the ability of Americans to disagree without feeling threatened by national outcomes. Restore the proper balance of state and federal power, and national consensus becomes possible again.

The Constitution didn’t stop working. We stopped following it.

America didn’t abandon amendments because originalists froze the Constitution in time. We abandoned amendments because Washington claimed powers the Constitution never granted. If we want to revive “We the People,” we have to revive the system that made amendments possible in the first place: a federal government with limited, enumerated powers, and states free to govern themselves.

[Ryan Boissonneault · Rating 5 out of 5]

A People’s History of the US Constitution

The US Constitution, the first constitution in history with a clear and functional amendment process, would leave open a “constitutional road to the decision of the people,” wrote James Madison, guarding against both “that extreme facility, which would render the Constitution too mutable; and that extreme difficulty, which might perpetuate its discovered faults.” In other words, it should neither be too easy nor too hard to update, correct, or improve the Constitution.

In this, the founders failed, abysmally. Over the course of 237 years since ratification, of the 12,000 proposed amendments, only 27 amendments have ever been ratified (that’s a success rate of 0.2%!). Compare this to the 7,000 out of 10,000 state-level amendments, well over two-thirds, that have been ratified by the states. I’d say that the double supermajority process that the founders established for federal Constitutional amendment has set the bar a bit too high.

The historical result—the inability of the country to make sufficient progress and the tendency for the court to overextend its powers and just legislate from the bench—is meticulously catalogued in Jill Lepore’s phenomenal new book.

Lepore, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, details the creation, philosophy, and history of the Constitution, not from the perspective of high-profile Supreme Court cases, but from the bottom up: from the perspective of the amendments that passed and also from the thousands of proposed amendments that failed, but that nevertheless tell us something important about what “we the people” have sought to change about the country (including several very early proposed amendments to end slavery that were ignored).

The first thing we should recognize is that it’s not surprising that the founders—men of science and the Enlightenment—believed in progress, both moral and intellectual, and would therefore seek to create a document that would evolve with the times, rather than be written in stone. What they failed to anticipate is just how difficult they would make this process, which is, as Lepore states, not sustainable.

Against this desire for evolvability is the conservative, reactionary doctrine of “originalism,” which, in conservative hands, means refusing to update racist and exclusionary practices from the 18th century. The only problem with the originalist position is that the founders were not originalists!

Here’s James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution:

“Is it not the glory of the people of America that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience?...Whatever veneration might be entertained for the body of men who formed our Constitution, the sense of that body could never be regarded as the oracular guide in expounding the Constitution.”

And here is Thomas Jefferson:

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

So "originalism” as an interpretive tool is rejected on its own terms. Modern day originalists—including Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas—use as their primary method of Constitutional interpretation a deference to the founders that the founders themselves explicitly rejected!

Jefferson and Madison wanted Constitutional amendment to coincide with the “progress of the human mind,” and, even if this was not pursued by the powers that be, it was pursued, 12,000 times in fact, by the people. What that history looks like is the subject of the remainder of this masterpiece of US history.

*More to come as I finish the book, and thanks to Edelweiss for the advanced review copy.