Talk by Dean Jason Opal.
The Constitution of the United States does not describe the United States as a nation. Instead, the 55 men who redesigned the country in 1787 designed a "Union." They also committed the federal government, the states, and "the People" at large to form "a more perfect Union." In part, these ideas came out of the 18th century British experience, in which the kingdoms of England and Scotland had joined into a single political entity; in part, they manifested in key components of constitutional law that were intended to attract foreign investment and check popular controls over the economy. And yet the belief that Americans could form a union also carried a moral and emotional charge, one that held the United States together during the extreme tumults of the 1790s and early 1800s.