ABSTRACT
There are always risks in selecting and describing transformations. On close inspection they turn out to be complex processes and invariably they invite dispute. In the case of the American Constitution there is another peculiar hazard in describing change. Lawyers, judges, and politicians, who write most of the history of the Constitution, have a vested interest in legitimacy. Their investigations of the past are often prompted by the need to find a believable genetic link between their present constitutional agenda and the fundamental law of the Constitution. This means that, even as the Constitution is in the process of change, there is a constant “spin” put on it to explain and reorder the past in such a way as to define an orderly or a true lineage and to oust illegitimate offspring.
