In Chapter 11, Lepore examines constitutional politics during the mid-20th century, a period in which amendment became increasingly difficult amid rising party polarization and the emergence of a newly organized far right. She centers the chapter on Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, a Democrat who emerged as one of the most influential advocates for constitutional amendment during the era. Bayh is best known for his efforts to abolish the Electoral College and for his leadership on amendments addressing presidential disability and succession. Lepore situates Bayh’s work within a long tradition of reform-minded legislators who viewed amendment as essential to democratic legitimacy, even as political conditions make such reform harder to achieve.

Lepore contrasts Bayh’s efforts with earlier reform movements by noting that, during the Warren Court era, many calls for constitutional amendment originated not from progressives but from the far right. These groups sought to overturn Supreme Court decisions on civil rights, criminal procedure, and voting, framing the Court as an illegitimate engine of social change. Organizations such as Americans for Constitutional Action (ACA) gave this movement structure and respectability, allowing far-right constitutional activism to influence mainstream political debate. This posed challenges for both major parties, complicating traditional alignments in which Republicans were associated with business interests and Democrats with labor.

The chapter also situates constitutional reform within moments of national crisis and moral urgency. Bayh’s work on presidential disability gained traction after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, while civil rights struggles—most notably in Selma, Alabama—exposed the Constitution’s failure to protect Black citizens’ voting rights without federal intervention. Together, these developments reveal a constitutional landscape increasingly shaped by polarization, distrust, and competing visions of legitimacy, making amendment both more necessary and more elusive.

Lepore examines the modern constitutional struggle over women’s equality and bodily autonomy, centering the work of Patsy Takemoto Mink, former congressional representative from Hawai’I, while expanding the story to include Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the rise of competing constitutional visions. Mink’s career illustrates the persistent gap between women’s lived experiences and their legal status under the Constitution. Despite gains in suffrage and workplace protections, women remained constitutionally unequal, prompting renewed efforts to secure formal guarantees through the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Lepore situates Mink within a long lineage of women’s constitutional claims, stretching from Abigail Adams’s early list of grievances to the feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

At the same time, Lepore introduces Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a central architect of gender equality through constitutional interpretation rather than amendment. As a lawyer with the ACLU, Ginsburg pursued a deliberate litigation strategy that framed sex discrimination as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, gradually reshaping constitutional doctrine. Lepore contrasts this approach with the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton (1973), which recognized a constitutional right to privacy encompassing reproductive choice. While these rulings expanded women’s autonomy, they also triggered intense backlash.

The chapter examines the emergence of the right-to-life movement and its role in mobilizing conservative constitutional politics. Opposition to abortion, alongside resistance to the ERA led by figures such as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, fueled what Lepore describes as a new constitutionalism—one grounded in originalism, moral absolutism, and skepticism toward judicially recognized rights. Through these intersecting struggles, Lepore shows how women’s constitutional status became a central fault line in American politics, revealing once again that constitutional change depends as much on cultural conflict and political mobilization as on legal doctrine itself.

In Chapter 13, Lepore focuses on the rise of modern originalism through the figure of Antonin Gregory Scalia, situating his jurisprudence within the political and constitutional upheaval that followed Roe v. Wade. Scalia’s ascent occurred during a moment of conservative mobilization, when opposition to abortion, civil rights expansion, and judicial power reshaped constitutional debate. Lepore traces Scalia’s intellectual formation and attraction to originalism—a theory of constitutional interpretation that sought to anchor meaning in the Constitution’s original public understanding—as both a reaction to perceived judicial overreach and a response to the practical difficulty of constitutional amendment.

The chapter underscores a central tension in Scalia’s constitutional vision. While originalism claimed to respect democratic processes by deferring change to Article V amendment, Scalia also advocated overruling Roe v. Wade through judicial decision rather than amendment, revealing the limits of originalism’s reliance on formal constitutional change. Lepore highlights Justice Anthony Kennedy as a counterpoint, whose jurisprudence reflected a more flexible understanding of liberty and dignity. Through Scalia’s career, Lepore shows how originalism reshaped constitutional politics by shifting battles over democracy, rights, and amendment from legislatures to courts, redefining how Americans argue about the Constitution itself.

Lepore reflects on the philosophical foundations and uncertain future of the United States Constitution, returning to the beliefs that shaped its creation. She argues that the Constitution rests on three 18th-century assumptions: that a constitution functions like a machine, that human reason governs political decision-making, and that history moves steadily toward progress. These assumptions once sustained faith in constitutional self-government, even as Thomas Jefferson himself recognized that amendment would be necessary to keep the document aligned with changing generations. From the beginning, Lepore suggests, the Constitution was designed not as a sacred relic but as a system requiring revision.

Lepore uses the image of the punch-card loom—an early mechanical device that inspired modern computation—as a metaphor for constitutional thinking. Just as the loom translated human intention into patterns, the Constitution was meant to channel human reason into governance. Yet Lepore contrasts this optimism with the present moment, observing that “in the first decades of the twenty-first century, faith in progress proved elusive in American constitutional culture. During the Age of Trump, a philosophy of doom replaced the philosophy of amendment” (577). This philosophy, she argues, is undemanding: it assumes decline is inevitable, absolves citizens of responsibility, and discourages collective action.

The Epilogue closes on a sobering but purposeful note. All the figures who shaped the constitutional struggles traced in the book are gone, reminders that constitutions, like people, risk becoming obsolete if they fail to change with their time. Yet Lepore resists finality. She describes Article V as a “sleeping giant,” a democratic mechanism still capable of renewal if awakened. The Constitution’s survival, she concludes, depends on the willingness of each generation to imagine change—and to demand it.