American Epic: Reading the U.S. Constitution

Written by Garrett Epps

Narrated by Lee Goettl

In 1987, E. L. Doctorow celebrated the Constitution's bicentennial by reading it. "It is five thousand words long but reads like fifty thousand," he said. Distinguished legal scholar Garrett Epps disagrees. It's about 7,500 words. And Doctorow "missed a good deal of high rhetoric, many literary tropes, and even a trace of, if not wit, at least irony," he writes.

In American Epic, Epps takes us through a complete reading of the Constitution to achieve an appreciation of its power and a holistic understanding of what it says. In this book he seeks not to provide a definitive interpretation, but to listen to the language and ponder its meaning. He draws on four modes of reading: scriptural, legal, lyric, and epic. The Constitution's first three words, for example, sound spiritual-but Epps finds them to be more aspirational than prayer-like. He turns the Second Amendment into a poem to illuminate its ambiguity. He notices oddities and omissions. The Constitution lays out rules for presidential appointment of officers, for example, but not removal. Should the Senate approve each firing? Can it withdraw its "advice and consent" and force a resignation? And he challenges himself, as seen in his surprising discussion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in light of Article 4, which orders states to give "full faith and credit" to the acts of other states.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ascent Audio
• Release date: Jan 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9781663734204

Reviews for American Epic

[davidwineberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Exceptional guided tourLike an atom, the USA is held together by tension among opposing, if not repelling forces. This natural state of affairs is dealt with in the constitution, which recognizes three such conflicts: between the federal and state governments, between Congress and the president, and between government and the people. Along the way it attempts to clarify all kinds of situations, but the imprecision of the framers making it up as a they went along and the very nature and imprecision of language itself necessitates a guide to talk us through it. Epps conducts this tour with verve, style, hints of cynicism and sarcasm, and a lot of direct experience.Many of us have read the constitution, and find it fairly clear. But when it is challenged, the nuances of the words, the syntax and the punctuation take on grave significance beyond their heft. Epps offers context, giving us the many sides of arguments, and with the backstory of the challenges – social, legislative and judicial – that forced the issues. He usually doesn’t take sides, and calls himself out when he does. He likes to compare the writing style to poetry, and divides the modes of reading the constitution into four: scriptural, lyric, legal and epic. This is not something the average American would consider when reading the Bill of Rights, but then they wouldn’t normally be guided by a constitutional lawyer and scholar. It makes the world of difference.Epps calls this fine parsing, and that manages to understate the case. The difference between commas and semi-colons, between sentences and subordinate clauses, and why the framers said it one way when (if that’s what they really meant) they could have been clear and precise about it in fewer words – results in a de facto 28th Amendment – mandating lifetime employment for lawyers.American Epic is a mercifully easy read, and puts a lot of what’s wrong in perspective. It is an essential service in an era when the judiciary is remaking society in its own image and Congress is incapable of agreeing on the time of day.David Wineberg