Having just turned 65 two months ago, I suspect that I am best qualified to introduce this Conference in the character of the Ghost of Christmas past. I received my doctorate in 1965, and began teaching two years earlier. Thirty-five years is a long time, and for me it has been a very good time. There was a time in the fantasies of my youth when I attributed my achievements to intellectual brilliance and scholarly diligence. The sobriety of age compels me to confess that being born in 1934, and thus belonging to one of the smallest generations alive in America today, is the principal reason for my success in the academic world. Three years service on my university's tenure and promotion committee convinces me that those we recruit today stand head and shoulders above many of us old timers. The future of America's universities is bright indeed.  

How bright is the future for the study of American constitutional history? Let me say that I am cautiously optimistic about the long-run development of the subject, both in undergraduate schools and in graduate institutions. Why cautious, and why optimistic?  

Cautious, because the past thirty years have shown a declining interest in American political history in general, and in American constitutional history in particular. From a time when every self-respecting history department offered a course on the United States constitution, we now have far less than half that do so, and many of them have abdicated responsibility for the course to their government or political science colleagues. To a degree this mirrors a more general decline in the place of history in undergraduate curricula. The National Association of Scholars reported that in 1993 only 12 per cent of undergraduate institutions included a history course in their graduation requirements.⁽¹⁾ As I read the job vacancy announcements and the annual meeting programs, there are virtually no new appointments and no active scholars, in the fields of political or constitutional history. It is painful to recall that in 1963, some thirty-five years ago, the late Paul Murphy urged historians to reclaim their rightful place in writing and teaching United States constitutional history.⁽²⁾ Those of us who are still active in the field know full well that the study is far from moribund, on the other hand, I think we justly feel marginalized by the leadership of today's historical profession. It is also alarming to realize that many senior scholars who were most productive in training constitutional history graduate students are either retired from teaching or deceased. There is a short supply of constitutional history specialists, and if we are honest, there seems to be a shrinking demand for them in the undergraduate classroom.  

Is this neglect justified? To a degree I believe that declining interest in American constitutional history is due to the failure of many who teach in the field to adapt to new conditions. There once was a time when all students studying the Constitution had a solid background through a mandatory American history survey course. That is no longer the case. As a consequence, new textbooks must combine basic historical information with the more detailed coverage of constitutional history. None of my college textbooks had more than one or two illustrations. Our modern generation of students learn best from photographs and diagrams, from power points, and from marginal materials that elaborate on the text. We can commiserate with each other by condemning a less verbal system of secondary education, or we can adapt constitutional history materials and teaching techniques to fit changed conditions. The bottom line is that American constitutional history as we taught it thirty years ago was, even then, a hard subject for undergraduates. Today it demands retooling or it will wither on the vine.  

During this Conference we shall focus upon a variety of approaches to teaching United States constitutional history. Some of these are old and well-established, and there is no need to indiscriminately discard tradition. On the other hand, we also must be open to new and innovative approaches, both in our classrooms and in the way we structure our own research and writing. The Biblical scholar J. B. Phillips wrote a challenging book entitled "Your God is Too Small". My suggestion is that for many of us, our Constitution and its history was, and still is, too small. We need to write it in larger type font and in bold face letters. It needs to be embellished with the living history by which it was once shaped, but which we have neglected. It needs to be reconsidered in the light of modern social science principles. It must speak in meaningful and humane terms to a generation of students that has a tendency to divorce academic learning from the realities of everyday life.  

The American constitution has never been the exclusive domain of the United States Supreme Court, and yet I used to teach it that way. Congress and the Executive Branch play an active role in constitutional development; so do the political parties, the labor unions, management associations, and various interest groups. There is a substantial cultural component to the Constitution, an unwritten set of customs and usages that make the wheels of government turn in spite of the much-vaunted checks and balances that theoretically were designed to make the federal government grind to a halt before it did damage--or anything else. Expanding the focus of United States constitutional history not only makes it more interesting to undergraduates, it also enhances our own understanding of the complex relationship of law, governmental power, and culture in our federal republic.  

On the other hand, the Supreme Court of the United States plays an important role in American constitutional development. Many of us have devoted our research efforts to the institutional history of the Court, but I would suggest that once again, we need to reach further in our study and in our teaching. We can no longer view American constitutional history as a study of U. S. Supreme Court precedents. We owe it to ourselves and our students to expand our epistemology beyond constitutional case-law. Personal behavior is a fascinating component of any historical study. Individuals really do make a difference in our lives, and in the life of nations. Some of us have become involved in a close study of why Justices and Courts decide cases in certain ways. How do they persuade each other? Does procedure make a difference in Supreme Court decision-making? How do cases impact upon individuals and groups within the American public? Why does the Amendment process succeed in one situation and fail in another? To what degree does the background of the Justices change their view of specific cases? Does the social psychology of small groups help to explain the Supreme Court's internal cohesiveness or contentiousness during any given historical period? These questions demand that we look into conclusions suggested by our colleagues in psychology, sociology, theology, philosophy, and a number of other social science and humanities disciplines.  

These thoughts will suggest that my optimism for the future of U. S. constitutional history derives in part from my perception that we already have begun the process of making the subject interdisciplinary. There is growing attention to comparative constitutional studies which help us to understand other systems even as we gain new insight into our own. It is gratifying to realize that we need not dilute the richness of constitutional history before it is palatable to undergraduates. Rather, it is in taking a broader and more catholic approach to the subject that we will know it better, and thus teach it more effectively. That is a challenge we can welcome, and an exciting undergraduate experience that our students will cherish.

 
Notes   

1. 1. National Association of Scholars Newsletter, VII ( No. 2, 1996 ), pp. 1, 5.

2. 2. "A Time to Reclaim: The Current Challenge of American Constitutional History," American Historical Review, LXIX ( 1963 ), 64-79.

*A.B., Columbia, 1955; LL. B., New York Law School, 1960; M.A., Columbia, 1961; Ph.D., 1965. Dr. Johnson is Ernest F. Hollings Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law. He has taught American constitutional history at the undergraduate and graduate level at Hunter College, City University of New York, the College of William and Mary, and at the University of South Carolina. His latest book is The Chief Justiceship of John Marshall, 1801-1835, published in 1997.