We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution

Part 3 marks a decisive shift in American constitutional history, not because conflict subsides, but because the mechanisms of change become more varied, more visible, and more contested. Between 1905 and 1959, amendment, interpretation, litigation, protest, and journalism all functioned as constitutional tools. Lepore uses this period to show how democracy expanded unevenly, how interpretation increasingly substituted for amendment, and how inequality continually tested the Constitution’s legitimacy.

Despite an apparent surge in constitutional amendments during the Progressive Era, Lepore makes clear that The Limits of Constitutional Change created ongoing obstacles for equality. The women’s suffrage parade of March 3, 1913, captures this paradox vividly. Women marched explicitly for a constitutional amendment, asserting faith in formal change, yet their public assault by their male counterparts and the state’s failure to protect them revealed how constitutional ideals offered no immediate shield against violence or exclusion. As Lepore notes, these suffragists “were attacked: taunted, tripped, beaten, and spat on, chiefly by well-dressed men in suits who flooded out of office buildings. More than one hundred injured women were carried to the hospital. The marchers locked arms and marched on” (318). Even as suffrage culminated in the Nineteenth Amendment, the process exposed the limits of constitutional reform when social attitudes lagged behind legal change.

These limits persisted in labor reform. Efforts to address child labor—an urgent national problem given industrialization and a large child population—repeatedly collided with constitutional barriers. Even though “[a]ccording to the U.S. Census for the year 1900, one in six American children under fourteen—nearly two million children—worked in mills, meatpacking plants, stores, mines, factories, and fields” (363), The Child Labor Tax Law and later the proposed Child Labor Amendment faced fierce opposition, not because child labor was defensible, but because federal intervention was framed as unconstitutional overreach.

Using historical examples, Lepore demonstrates that amendment alone could not guarantee justice; it required favorable interpretation, political will, and sustained enforcement. For example, she emphasizes that even the New Deal illustrates the Constitution’s resistance to rapid transformation. While Franklin Roosevelt’s programs expanded federal responsibility, they were met with judicial obstruction and conservative backlash. The Indian New Deal, in particular, challenged longstanding constitutional assumptions about Native sovereignty and federal authority, revealing how amendment and legislation alike struggled to undo centuries of constitutional exclusion. 

As amendment proved difficult, activists found a route through Constitutional Interpretation as a Political Pathway—a shift visible throughout Part 3, from Progressive reform to civil rights litigation. Lepore shows how conservatives and reformers alike recognized interpretation as a powerful tool—one capable of either stabilizing or transforming constitutional meaning. She uses the example of James Montgomery Beck, who embodies conservative reliance on interpretation as restraint. Styling himself as “Mr. Constitution,” Beck defended original meaning and constitutional permanence against what he derided as political crusades. Yet, even Beck conceded ground when faced with the strategic threat of a constitutional convention, preferring amendment over structural uncertainty. His posture reveals a critical insight of the era: interpretation was not neutral. It was a deliberate choice, shaped by fear of social upheaval and skepticism toward mass democracy.

On the opposite end, reformers increasingly turned to interpretation as a means of expansion. Alice Paul rejected incremental or protective approaches to women’s rights, arguing instead that equality required explicit constitutional recognition—or, at minimum, a reading of the Constitution that refused gender hierarchy. Her theory placed interpretation at the center of constitutional legitimacy. Similarly, Charles Beard’s insistence on a “living Constitution” reframed interpretation as historically contingent rather than fixed, challenging reverence for the framers as a substitute for democratic accountability.

Lepore positions the seminal Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education as the epitome of this interpretive turn, emphasizing that interpretation’s power was conditional. In Brown, rather than proposing a new amendment, Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund reinterpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, arguing that segregation itself violated constitutional equality. This strategy demonstrated the full potential of interpretation when paired with disciplined legal advocacy and mass mobilization. Brown required enforcement, public pressure, and sustained resistance to obstruction, underscoring interpretation’s dependence on political context.

Throughout Part 3, Lepore emphasizes that constitutional progress did not eliminate inequality; instead, it often exposed Democracy’s Fragility in the Face of Inequality. The suffrage movement itself reproduced racial hierarchies, marginalizing Black women such as Ida B. Wells to retain white Southern support. Lepore reiterates the ways this pattern—expansion paired with exclusion—reappears repeatedly, citing women’s suffrage and racial inequality as examples. Women gained the vote, yet racial violence and disenfranchisement persisted. Labor protections advanced unevenly, while economic inequality deepened. Civil rights victories provoked massive resistance rather than consensus.

Figures like Mary Guthrie Kilbreth exemplify how fear was mobilized to defend inequality. By associating reform with Bolshevism, critics reframed democratic demands as existential threats. This rhetoric did not merely oppose change; it delegitimized participation itself. Women’s Constitutional Leagues promoted indirect influence over formal rights, reinforcing a vision of democracy that prized order over inclusion. In the courts, justices such as George Sutherland used constitutional doctrine to strike down protective legislation, prioritizing abstract liberty over lived vulnerability.

Lepore situates these struggles within a global shift in constitutional language. As she notes, “The world was changing, and the language of constitutions was changing with it: ‘Language relating to rights in national constitutions nearly doubled between 1920, when words about rights comprised about 6 percent of national constitutional texts, and 1948, when that percentage had risen to 10’” (398). This expansion of rights language highlights a growing global expectation that constitutions should protect human dignity.

Lepore presents the public reaction to Brown as a final illustration of democratic fragility. Though widely hailed as a constitutional breakthrough, the decision was met with defiance, delay, and violence. State governments openly resisted compliance, revealing that constitutional authority depends not only on judicial declaration but on collective commitment. Ethel L. Payne’s journalism becomes essential here, exposing resistance and demanding accountability. Her work demonstrates that constitutional change often requires witnesses as much as lawmakers—voices willing to insist that constitutional promises be measured against reality.