ABSTRACT
Beyond its governing institutions, the Constitution has survived through two principal mechanisms: the amendment process and constitutional interpretation. This chapter examines both as integral, though distinct, parts of a healthy constitutional ecosystem ensuring the means of its own adaptation. The avenues for constitutional change provoke heated conflict but also ensure that government remains responsive to citizen demands, balancing majoritarianism with minority rights and liberties. The high bar for amendments makes courts the key, though not the sole, engine of constitutional change. Hard cases often make for bad law. But thinking over some controversial issues can illuminate the integral but exceptionally difficult task of constitutional interpretation and its relationship to broader political and social dynamics. As the divides over abortion, firearms, and capital punishment illustrate, the Constitution can address but not fully resolve issues of life and death over which there is no moral consensus.
