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Dampening The Illegitimacy Of The United States' Government: Reframing The Constitution From Contract To Promise, Malla Pollack

Malla Pollack

Realistic political philosophers working in the United States face a serious problem. The public accepts as axiomatic the fundamental status of the 1789 Constitution. That Constitution, however, even as amended, is blatantly illegitimate, thus undermining any theoretical claim that citizens should respect (as opposed to obey) the existing national government. This paper tenders a method for shoring up the legitimacy of the federal government through the Constitution-as-promise. Realism is central to this project; I am discussing the words of the ratified document with its twenty-seven Article V-created amendments. I am not taking the common path of deflecting problems by building …