Constitution Breakdown #1: Nikole Hannah-Jones
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What is the purpose of this Constitution Breakdown series and who are the hosts?
This is the 99% invisible breakdown of the Constitution. I'm Roman Mars. So last year on the breakdown, we tackled The Power Broker, a book so long we needed an entire year to get through it. But it also happens to be the best book of all time, so you know, we spent our time well. If you haven't listened to it, you definitely should check it out. The series won tons of awards, including three Webbies. I'm really proud of it. And when I was thinking about what to do for our book club breakdown this year, I considered some similar books like biographies, a fascinating. People, explorations of urban planning history, of American history, world history. But when I thought about what I really wanted to talk about right now, in this moment, it was something totally different from the power broker or any sort of big weighty masterpiece of a tome.
I wanted to talk about the Constitution. At just 7,591 words, including all 27 amendments, it's about 1%. of the length of the power broker. But each of those words carries so much weight and history and meaning and has so much impact on our lives. And it has so many interpretations. So in many ways, breaking down the Constitution is even more daunting than any 1200 page book. But lucky for me, I happen to already have a show about constitutional law. It's called What Trump Can Teaches About Con Law. And I produce it with my neighbor, the law professor, Elizabeth Joe, and she's going to lead us through the constitution. So for people who are unfamiliar with the other show, Elizabeth, can you introduce yourself?
I'm so excited to do this with you. I'm a law professor at the University of California, Davis. I teach courses on criminal procedure, privacy, but most important for our show, the introductory class to constitutional law. I also spend way too much time online and worrying about what I see there.
So you're the perfect person to do this with, and honestly the only person I would want to do this with. And we're gonna go through the Constitution, article by article, maybe even breaking up an article over a couple of months if it's especially complicated, or condensing some amendments as needed. We're gonna really try to understand our country's founding document, but we're gonna do it book club style with a different guest each month and have a fun discussion. And really anything goes. It could be all about content. context and history and how the Constitution affects us in our present day lives, but it could also be about just the text itself, the weirdness of the text of the Constitution, just anything that comes to mind when we talk about the Constitution.
How does the preamble set the tone for the Constitution and why was it rewritten by Governor Morris?
We'll take a look at the genius and the many, many flaws of the constitution. It is a short document, but let's face it, it's dry, filled with weird capitalization, odd punctuation, and no explanation whatsoever.
That's right. And and by the way, we're still doing what Trump can teach us about con law, where Elizabeth explains some current event to me through the lens of constitutional law. That's gonna be the second half of each episode. So the first part will be the breakdown of some piece of the constitution, and the second part will be about constitutional law that's impacting our lives today.
Right, so we're starting, of course, from the very beginning with the preamble to the constitution. So Roman, it's just fifty two words, so why don't you read it for us?
I I would love nothing more. So here we go. 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. Whew, pretty good. I mean, not me. The writing is good. The reading was okay. So, to talk a little bit more about the preamble, to open up our book club, we brought in journalist and writer Nicole Hannah-Jones. Nicole is an investigative reporter for the New York Times magazine and the night chair in race and journalism at Howard University.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the purpose of this Constitution Breakdown series and who are the hosts?
0:01–2:29
2
How does the preamble set the tone for the Constitution and why was it rewritten by Governor Morris?
2:29–8:06
3
What does journalist Nikole Hannah‑Jones say about the phrase “We the People” and its historical exclusions?
8:06–17:56
4
How did the Dred Scott decision interpret the preamble and what does it mean for Black Americans?
17:56–26:17
5
Why did the Supreme Court reject the preamble as a source of rights in the Jacobson vaccination case?
26:17–34:44
6
What is the Posse Comitatus Act and how have its exceptions been used historically?
34:44–49:39
7
Why did the Trump administration invoke a little‑known statute to federalize the National Guard for ICE raids in Los Angeles?
49:39–1:12:27
8
What are the long‑term implications of using the military for domestic immigration enforcement?
1:12:27–1:20:07