Sovereign Silences and the Voice of War in the American Conflict over Slavery

Abstract

Various students of constitutional law have proposed a negative relationship between the possibility of formal amendment and recourse to informal construction. They suggest that if formal amendatory appeal to the sovereign People seems excessively difficult, a constitutional culture will more readily tolerate expansive interpretations or simple political action as mechanisms of change and clarification. Conversely, if the processes of amendment sufficiently allow the People to clarify or alter their own original charter, a constitutional culture will manifest less willingness to let judges and politicians put words in their mouths. The basic thrust of such constitutional logic is that, where reasonably possible, sovereigns will speak for themselves.