Good afternoon. Welcome to the 2021 Tocqueville lecture. My name is Vincent Philip Munoz. I'm an associate professor of political science here at the University of Notre Dame, concurrent professor of law. And it's my privilege to welcome you to the Notre Dame center for citizenship and constitutional government, Tocqueville lecture. The Center for citizenship and constitutional government is the College of Arts and Letters newest centers. I have the privilege of directing the center inaugural Director, Center centers made possible by a number of people who are here today and please know how appreciative we are. I'm also deeply appreciative to Sarah mustela, the I A O'Shaughnessy, Dean of the College of Arts and Letters, and it's my pleasure to welcome Dean mostella to the podium to say a few remarks. de mesilla.
Good afternoon, and welcome to Notre Dame. We are glad that you are here. In 1995, pope john paul the second issued an encyclical called evangelium Vt. In it, he said, even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties. Every person is sincerely open to truth and goodness can by the light of reason, and the hidden action of grace, come to recognize the natural law written in the heart, the sacred value of human life, from its beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good, respected to the highest degree. Upon the recognition of this right, every human community and the political community itself are founded the gospel of God's love for man, the gospel of the dignity of the person, and the gospel of life, are a single indivisible gospel. At the University of Notre Dame, we recognize the natural law written in the heart, the dignity of life from the beginning to the end, and the right of every human being to have his or her dignity respected to the highest degree. In that spirit, we launch the Center for citizenship and constitutional government, and thereby expand the university's long standing efforts to affirm human dignity. Democracy, citizenship, and the Constitution are at the heart of important questions our country is facing. This new Notre Dame center is well positioned to advance our strength in these areas, and to help Notre Dame fulfill its ambition to be the world's preeminent Catholic research university. This new center builds on existing strengths and alliance with many of the priorities in the College of Arts and Letters, including innovating our undergraduate curriculum, investing in our graduate students, increasing the impact of our research, and promoting cross disciplinary collaboration in scholarship and education. It will help educate our next generation next generation of leading citizens and citizen leaders. This center will help our students grapple with enduring questions like what is justice and what is the most effective form of government? How do we protect and promote the dignity of every person? How do we secure equity and foster the common good in a world of overwhelming inequality, polarization and division. The study of constitutional government offers tremendous opportunity to strengthen existing connections between the college and other units on campus such as the law school, and to form new ones across the disciplines and across the university. The center will also be a bridge between Notre Dame and Washington DC. As I've heard Philip say before, the center will bring nd to DC and DC to nd. These are partnerships that will further our understanding of citizenship in a modern democracy, and enhance Notre Dame's role as a leader in scholarship and in the public sphere. Like many of our programs, this new center brings together faculty scholarship, graduate student training, and undergraduate research and learning. It will bring that together with transformational engagement opportunities, including opportunities to hear from speakers at the highest levels of government, like this afternoon's conversation with Justice Clarence Thomas. The chance to engage with and learn from leaders and top scholars, when paired with a strong Catholic liberal arts foundation will prepare our students to become thoughtful, influential citizen Since eager to bring their Notre Dame values into the world, and prepared to become ethical leaders in their communities, churches careers. We are grateful for this opportunity we have today to hear from Justice Thomas, and we thank him for helping us launch this center. Thank you.
Thank you so much Dean bustillo. As Dean mustela said, the center the mission of the Center for citizenship and constitutional government is to cultivate thoughtful and educated, educated citizens by supporting scholarship and education concerning the ideas, institutions and practices of constitutional government. The center has a number of initiatives we're excited about, but really the heart and soul of what we do is with our undergraduate students, the center runs the university's undergraduate minor in constitutional studies for your, for you, students here who are interested in questions concerning the Constitution. Please come talk to me at some point and I'll tell you all about our minor. We host a student fellowship program where our undergraduate student fellows participate in the life of the center tomorrow, tomorrow morning, our minority minority family, Tocqueville fellows will have breakfast seminar with Justice Thomas. Some of our constitutional studies miners have been engaged in a course on jurisprudence during justice Thomas's visit this week. For all those who are interested, faculty, alumni, and of course you students, come visit us on our website con studies that nd.edu you find all our programs, including this lecture, which is being recorded. Okay, one of our one of our best traditions at the center, is to have one of our current fellows or even a former fellow introduce our guest speakers. So let me please call to the podium mega Garnet. Maggie is a senior theology major and constitutional studies minor, and she will introduce Justice Thomas, Maggie.
It is truly an honor to introduce our esteemed guest for tonight's Tocqueville lecture. I can't claim the privilege of numbering among justice Thomas's clerks, though my mother was expecting me when she had that privilege. So I like to say that I can claim to be the first unborn supreme court clerk. I don't know that the Justice would agree if that's a faithful interpretation of the original meaning of my mother's clerkship. But that said, it has been a joy to become a student this week. The Honorable Clarence Thomas is the Senior Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, where he has served since October 23 1991. At the nomination of President George HW Bush, he was raised in pinpoint Georgia near Savannah and attended conception seminary and the College of the Holy Cross. Justice Thomas then received his degree in law from Yale Law School in 1974. He has served as an assistant attorney general of Missouri, an attorney with a Monsanto company, a legislative assistant to senator john Jan fourth, as assistant secretary for civil rights in the United States Department of Education. And as chairman of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1990. Justice Thomas was then nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He served there until his nomination and confirmation to the United States Supreme Court in 1991. Additionally, the justice is the author of his personal memoir, my grandfather's son, published in 2007, and husband to the delightful Jenny Thomas, father to jamala, Dean and grandfather to Judah. More personally, Justice Thomas is a mentor, friend, and adopted father and godfather to his beloved Thomas Clark family, composed of past clerks and their families of which I'm blessed to count myself a member. I've learned so much from the justices deep confidence in God's providential care, and his unwavering courage and speaking the truth boldly, even if one must speak it alone. His is truly a life lived fearlessly in service to his country and to his constitution. Please join me in welcoming the honorable Justice Clarence Thomas. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. I feel like I should quit while I'm ahead. Yeah, if I look like I'm squinting, it's because I can't see you all very well because of these lights. So
before I start, I'd like to thank Professor Munoz and the Center for inviting me and making it so pleasant. And I'd like to thank Maggie Garnet, who originally invited me just to visit Notre Dame. And I'm very, very fond of Maggie and her parents. Before I get to my prepared remarks, some years ago, Justice Scalia told me that I should get out on the road and fly the fly. Well, he tended to be more of an extrovert than I am. I'm quite content not to get out on the road. But when Professor Munoz asked me to talk a bit about the declaration, actually, when I heard that he wanted me to do that, My Bride and I, Virginia, were in, we were arriving in the mountains of North Carolina, and Tennessee. And the, but we noticed something there. When we were thinking, when I was thinking about this band before I started preparing remarks, that then large number of flags of people who still believe in the ideal of this country, in an environment when there's so much criticism, antagonism, and actually people with the stain for the very same, it was very interesting to be with regular people for three weeks. And I love this one of the reasons we've been rvng, RV, advocates and an RV for over two decades. We simply love to be a part of that. The other thing that I might note about the declaration is, some years ago, I decided to drive with my law clerks to Gettysburg. It was after particularly difficult terms. And you could sense them getting a little irritated. But I wanted them to understand why we do what we do. It's not about us, it's not about winning and losing at the court. It is about the entire country and the idea of this country. So our annual trip is to Gettysburg for that purpose. So this is pretty special to me, I must admit, because I don't recycle speeches, these things are quite a bit of work. And it's also trying to make sure that you actually talk with, not to or at your audience. So first of all, again, let me thank Maggie and Professor Munoz and Notre Dame, it's been quite some time since I've been here. And this has been very enjoyable. I also like to thank the students that I've interacted with, by our way stimulate thinking I have never left an interaction with students who really wanted to learn without learning so much myself. So I like to thank Maggie for her introduction, which I think was far too generous and kind. But it only deepens my effect affection for her. As I said, it is an honor to be here with you and South Bend. I've been fortunate as, as I alluded earlier, to have visited here a number of times, and to have a number of former clerks on the law school faculty. I have also been fortunate to have a number of your outstanding law school graduates clerked for me, and they were outstanding indeed. And now I have one of your graduates has a colleague. And of course, I knew justice Barrett as a law clerk for Justice Scalia some years ago. And as a member of the Notre Dame law school faculty, faculty, I pray that she has a long and fruitful tenure on the court. This university has been a stalwart and add as an aside had I seen this university When I applied to college, there is no doubt I would have been here. In fact, I think I still have a few years that I could go to college.
But this university has been a stalwart of American academia, and one of the universities we revered from afar. in Savannah, Georgia during my youth. It stated mission has been unwavering, the pursuit of truth for its own sake. And its inspiration has been divine, Jesus Christ as a source of wisdom, in whom all things can be brought to its completion. I should come it should come as no surprise then that Notre Dame attracts and produces so many talented scholars and students. I am particularly grateful for the outstanding scholarship and graduates this university has produced. This is further demonstrated by the outstanding students as I alluded to, in Professor Munoz this class that I've had a chance to interact with. From time to time, Justice Scalia and I talked about how similar we were yet so different. We tended to independently arrive at the same conclusion in so many cases. Yet, he was from an educated family in the urban northeast, while I was from an uneducated family from the deep south. Of course, the condescending media elites accuse me of being his flunky, which bothered him much more than it bothered me. I was used to bigotry. Unlike him, I was used to bigotry, paternalism and condescension. He was not after Justice Scalia died. I mentioned our conversation to one of his son's father, Paul Scalia. He immediately attributed our shared judicial approach to our formation. We were both Catholics attended parochial schools, and despite the geographic separation, benefited from a common culture. This may seem somewhat anachronistic today. So when so many of our common bonds had been severed. The differences are now much more pronounced. Since they are there, they are no longer ameliorated or temper rised by what we all have in common. In my youth, we believed in our country's aspirational motto, E Pluribus Unum, despite the reality of unequal treatment. In this postmodern multicultural world, the emphasis is decidedly on the Pluribus and not. So much of my thinking about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence is influenced by this formation, and the world of my youth. Much the same can be said for the declaration itself. It was decidedly influenced by the shared culture and the attitudes of the founding generation. It was not a grand theory cooked up by a few men. I'm sure you are. You all are somewhat aware of my aversion to esoteric theories that have little or remote bearing on day to day life past or present. It could be that be the case that having grown up with people who did not have the luxury of contriving theories unrelated to daily life, I have become uncomfortable with a deductive approach to reasoning. No one in my life started by coming up with a theory first, and seeing how it's squared with the facts. Second, there was no time for that. My family's friends and neighbors subsistence depended on a more inductive experiential approach. They did. They did what worked. That's based on experience, not on theory. I believe this was a case for the founding generation as it was for me. I'm a product of the state of Georgia, the Georgia of the 1950s and 60s, the world where I grew up was quite different from the world of the day. That is obvious and borders on a truism
in the race based race obsessed to where Today, one would think that or could think that I'm talking about or referring solely to race. But alas, I'm not. I mean much more than that. In those days of the 1950s, there was, of course quotidian and pervasive segregation, and race based laws, which were repulsive and at odds with the principles of our country. It was a world of the solid south, when the democrats were routinely referred to as dixiecrats. But despite that, there was a deep and abiding love for our country, and a firm desire to have the rights and responsibilities of full citizenship. regardless how society treated us, there was never any doubt that we were equally entitled to claim the promise of America as our birthright, and equally duty bound to honor and defend her to the best of our ability. We held these ideals first and foremost, because we were raised to know that as children of God, we were inherently equal and equally responsible for our actions. In my generation, one of the central aspects of our lives was religion and religious education. The single biggest event in my early life, was going to live with my grandparents in 1955. My grandfather was a Catholic convert, and very devout. As a result, my brother and I were sent to St. Benedict, the more grammar school where I entered the second grade. Between my grandparents and my nuns, I was taught pedagogically and experientially to navigate through and survive the negativity of a segregated world without negating the good that there was, or as my grandfather frequently said, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. To this day, I revere admire and love my nuns. They were devout, courageous, and principled women. The first to teach me was Sister Mary Dela Rosa, my second grade teacher. I was not Catholic at the time, and had only one or two memories of ever having gone to church before St. Benedict's. As a part of our catechism lesson system, Mary Dela Rosa asked, Why did God create you? in unison, our class of about 40 kids would answer loudly, reciting the Baltimore Catechism. God created me to know love and serve Him in this life, and to be happy with him in the next through many years of school and extensive reading. Since then, I have yet to hear a better explanation of why we are here. It was the motivating Truth of My childhood and remains a central arch. It remains as a central truth today.
Because I'm a child of God, there is no force on this earth that can make me any less than a man of equal dignity and equal worth. This was an appy or ride truth that was repeatedly restated and echoed throughout the segregated world of my youth. This accepted truth reinforced our proper roles as equal citizens, not the perversely distorted and reduced role offered us by Jim Crow, a role that is not unlike the reduced but apparently more palatable image of blacks that is bandied about or assigned to us today. Whether deemed inferior by the crudest bigots are considered a victim by the most educated elites, being dismissed as anything other than inherently equal is still at bottom, a reduction of our human worth. My nuns at St. Benedict's taught me that that was a lie. And to paraphrase Solzhenitsyn, we were not to live by that lie. in God's eyes, we were inherently equal, and that was that this truth permeated our home life as well. Less with a focus on rights and more with a focus on what was required of us as children of God. My grandparents held fast to this belief. in God's eyes, we were all equal. And because of that, not only did we deserve to be treated equally, but we also were required to conduct ourselves as children of God. Hence, we were to live our lives according to His Word. My grandparents repeatedly stress that because of our fallen nature, we had to earn our bread by the sweat of our brows. There was no room to doubt this and even less for self pity. My grandfather would let us know in no uncertain terms, that there were to be no excuses, though he knew as well as anyone that many were convenient, and possibly legitimate. As he often said, oh man can't is dead, I helped bury him. And it wasn't just my grandparents who were watching us. As they saw things on Judgement Day, we would be held accountable for the use of our God given talents and our opportunities. As I overheard one of the deacons from my grandmother's Baptist Church say, God is a big guy, God. He was all seeing and all knowing, it behooves us to walk a straight and narrow path. Admittedly, much of the sounds anachronistic today, perhaps, we have grown to cosma, cosmopolitan or cynical for the theology of barely literate, but wise people. But my grandparents beliefs were not unique to that era. If anything, they were commonplace and virtually universal. There was a little that was different about us except our Catholicism, which was quite unique. As I reflect on my life, the family that my grandparents provided for my brother and me, was the fountainhead of the moral guidance in our lives. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it well, the family is the original cell of social life. It is the community in which from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God and make good use of freedom. Family Life is an initiation into the life in society. That was certainly the case in our house. during my childhood, those around us took this calling seriously. Our neighbors and those in our daily lives, taught us that God loved us equally. And that America stood for it that same ideal, even though it had failed to live up to it. Despite this failure, our Christian duty was to still love our country, even as we objected to its evidence shortcomings. This was more than a belief. It was a way of life.
I lived in a world of an exaggerated but pervasive patriotism. We were to be good, productive and loyal citizens. And that was that this was our country, and no one could deny us that inheritance. Nor were we to disinherit ourselves by rejecting our own country, and our birthright of full citizenship. So at the beginning of each school day, we lined up by class two by two and said the Pledge of Allegiance. And when the local television station signed off at night, and event which we rarely got to see, there was a beautiful rendition of the national anthem, and the point high flight up up the long delirious burning blue. I've taught the wind swept heights with easy grace. Were never Lark or even Eagle flew. And while with silent, lifting mine, I've tried the high on trespass, sanctity of space, put out my hand and touch the face of God. No matter how much others might deny our full inheritance. We were not to act as though we had been disinherited. And we were not to act badly because others had acted. badly. I cannot say that I have always lived by this injunction. Unfortunately for too many years of my life, I lost sight of that lesson and saw it as a sign of weakness or cowardice. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, I lost faith in the teachings of my childhood, and succumbed to an array of angry ideologies. And the that was why I left the seminary in May of 1968. I lead others and my emotions persuade me that my country and my God had abandoned me. I became disoriented, disenchanted with my faith, and my country and deeply embedded. And perhaps Worst of all, I let my family down. This was further exacerbated when my grandfather asked me to leave his house following my abandonment of my vocation. I was 19 years old. I was consumed by negativity, cynicism, animus, and any other negative emotion you can conjure up. Sadly, the destructive disposition that I exhibited then appears to be celebrated today. I left Savannah for college at Holy Cross that following follow up, where I fell in quickly with radical ideologies such as black power. It was an era of disenchantment and deconstruction. The beliefs of my youth were subjected to the jaundiced eye of critical theories, or perhaps more accurately, cynical theories. What had given my life meaning and a sense of belonging that this country was my home was jettison as old fashioned and antiquated. It was considered preposterous to believe in such outmoded things. Having rejected my faith, my family and my country, I was searching for something to occupy me. It was easy and convenient to fill that void with victim, a black man with an axe to grind. So many of my folk time, focus intently. Excuse me, so many of us focused intently on our racial differences and grievances. Much like today, I'm afraid. My grandfather, a man of reality, not theory, often asked me in an exasperated tone. When you get your way and undermine this country, then what other times he would simply walk away wondering out loud, why he and my grandmother had made so many sacrifices for me. From time to time, he would ominously forewarn me, you just live long enough, you'll see. As usual, he was right.
As I matured, I began to see that the theories of my young adulthood were destructive and self defeating. After recognizing that I was adrift. What I realized more than anything else, is that I needed to regain common sense and judgment and what I had jettisoned. I had rejected my country, my birthright as a citizen, and I had nothing to show for it. Perhaps that is the ultimate destination of nihilistic ideologies. The wholesomeness of my childhood had been replaced with an emptiness, cynicism and despair. I was faced with a simple fact that there was no greater truth than what my nuns and my grandparents had taught me. We are all children of God and rightful heirs to our nation's legacy of civic equality. We were duty bound to live up to obligations of the fo an equal citizenship, to which we were entitled by birth. On the morning of April 16th 1970. After returning from a riot, I stood outside the chapel at Holy Cross, and ask God to take hate out of my heart. I use this background to set the stage for my later and more in depth encounter with the declaration of independence in the mid 1980s. At that time, having run agencies and seeing how the federal government actually worked, I became deeply interested in The Declaration of Independence. I had hoped it would bring some clarity to the cacophonous world in which I found myself studying the founding. Though. Studying the founding, however, thought more like a return to familiar ground, the ground of my upbringing. The declaration captured what I had been taught to venerate as a child, but had cynically rejected as a young man. All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. And so declaring the Declaration of Independence did not propose to have discovered anything new. Its truths were self evident. They were beyond dispute. They were a priori in the society of my youth, and by the School, home and in the culture they were given. And as I rediscovered, the God given principles of the Declaration, and our founding, I eventually returned to the church, which had been teaching the same truths for millennia, that the declaration set forth self evident truths was no accident. The founders quite frankly, didn't have the time or the mandate to reinvent the wheel or the world. Between April and July 1776. The fervor for the for independence was palpable throughout the colonies. The colonies, their counties and towns and even trade associations. Were drafting their own declarations of independence. The late historian Pauline Maier estimated that there were 90 such declarations during this time frame. Though not all were specifically denoted as such.
These lesser known declarations typically began with lists of grievances against the British Empire. Among them with George two thirds rejection of the olive branch petition, Great Britain's use of Indian tribes and German mercenaries to wage war against the colonies and Parliament's prohibitory act cutting off all trade between the colonies and England. The declarations then asserted that these usurpations were at odds with man's invaluable rights and privileges, to quote a Rhode Island declaration, or the first principles of nature to quote a declaration from Pennsylvania. Thus, to maintain inviolate our liberties and to transmit them unimpaired to posterity, as one Maryland declaration put it, separation from Great Britain was the only remaining course. When the Continental Congress convened in spring 1776. The colonists did not need to be reminded of their grievances or the righteousness of their cause. Their declarations made their points clear, rather, what they sought was leadership from a united Congress. As another Maryland declaration explained, national independence could be achieved only upon a close union and continental Confederation. Yet when Thomas Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia on May 14 17th 1776, he was torn and arguably did not want to be there. The Commonwealth of Virginia was about to debate its constitution, and Jefferson had spent weeks preparing a draft for the Commonwealth consideration. But Jefferson due to illness had been the last of the Virginia delegation to arrive in Philadelphia. So he was chosen to stay behind in Philadelphia, while the other delegates headed back to Virginia. When fellow delegate George wife left for Williamsburg, Jefferson tuck the copy of his draft constitution and White's baggage, Virginia cribbed from Jefferson's proposed preamble, but not much else. In Philadelphia, Congress tasked Jefferson and his committee of five to prepare the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson submitted the committee's draft to Congress, a little more than two weeks after receiving the assignment. john adams later recounted that Jefferson had drafted the document and only a couple of days. Jefferson was a busy man and June 19 in 1776. He oversaw Multiple committees regarding Canadian affairs drew up the rules and regulations for congressional debates, and participated in other matters. Moreover, Virginia was operating with a skeleton delegation, providing little opportunity to spread the word around. Nevertheless, Adam urged Jefferson as busy as he was depend to drive, as it would be better for a more measured Southern Gentleman, rather than a divisive, independent minded New Englander to take the lead and drafting and promoting the declaration.
As time was of the essence, Jefferson drew heavily from two sources, the preamble of his draft of the Virginia constitution, and the recently enacted Virginia Declaration of Rights. Jefferson's preamble included many of the grievances against King George, that up at that ultimately appeared in the declaration. Likewise, the Virginia Declaration of Rights already had declared men equally free and independent, and endowed with the inherent rights, including the right to pursue, obtain and obtain happiness and safety. So ultimately, Jefferson did not propound a new political theory, often the he wasn't even introducing new language. Rather, he reiterated what his fellow countrymen already believed, and what they had already repeatedly set out in their own declarations. There was no time or appetite for a new theory of American independence. Even the words in the Virginia document, were not original. The American founding drew upon centuries of British history, most notably the British Declaration of Rights of 1689. That declaration like the British declarations of the centuries prior had three basic parts, one to raise grievances against the cane, another to declare the rights of Englishmen and the third to fashion a government to protect those rights. The American Declaration of Independence adopted the very same structure. And so doing the declaration made clear that like much like the English Declaration of Rights, it was a constitutional document that set out a foundation for government. It was a clarion call to the new Americans. You are men of an eight and civic equality, who are now duty bound to defend your new country and deed. Once published, the Declaration was distributed not only among the colonies, but also to each commander of the Continental Army. What followed was a revolution and the founding of a nation. The later adoption of our constitution did not consign the Declaration of Independence to a preparatory status. To the contrary, the declaration remains central to and often preeminent in the American project. As Frederick Douglass later put it, the Declaration of Independence was a ring bolt to the chain of our nation's destiny. America's fight against the most glaring contradiction, the peculiar institution of slavery, immediately put the ring boat to its greatest test. From the beginning, the founders understood that slavery violated the national call to equality. James Madison wrote in his notes during the Constitutional Convention, where slavery exists, the republican theory becomes still more fallacious. Governor marks likewise condemned the nefarious institution as the curse of heaven, on the states where it prevailed. In fact, because many of the founding fathers were so deeply ashamed of slavery, they refuse to include the word slave in the original Constitution. Slavery now appears only once in the 13th amendment that abolished it. Nevertheless, slavery persisted for eight decades after the ratification of the Constitution. It was the rot at the core of our country's Foundation, to some that made America irredeemable William Lloyd Garrison the fiery abolitionists called the Constitution, a covenant with death and an agreement with as hell, he refused to vote and call for the dissolution of the Union. He would even burn copies of the Constitution during his speeches. In his view, America was a slaveholding nation, and there could be no compromise with the evil of slavery.
Others of the era, however, were unwilling to give up on the American project. equal citizenship was a black man's birthright, and to give up on America was to concede that America's blacks never were equal citizens, as the Declaration of Independence had promised them to demoralize freedmen and slaves in that way, as Frederick Douglass argued, served only to increase the hopelessness of their bondage. The real goal, Douglass repeatedly made clear was to convince Americans that the country was unmoored, but not lost. But many Americans, even those who did not live in the south, or themselves own slaves, undermine Douglass's message. Take for instance, another Douglas of the of that era, Stephen A. Douglas, the Illinois senator touted an odd brand of popular sovereignty. In his view, each territory had the right to determine whether to permit slavery within its border. When confronted with the simple, clear and direct language of the Declaration, declaring that all men were created equal. Douglas responded in 1857 by arguing that the text did not mean what it said. to him. The declarations famous opening meant only that, quote, British subjects on the continent were equal to British subjects born and residing in Great Britain. Thus, he reduced a universal truth to a narrow national one. A large group of Illinois citizens were dismayed by Douglass's attack on the Declaration of Independence. So they invited a young lawyer to respond to Douglas in Springfield, Illinois. That man, of course, was Abraham Lincoln, who became perhaps the declarations greatest proponent and advocate. Lincoln conceded that the declaration did not assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying equality nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. But man's on equal station meant only that the dream was deferred, it remains to be attained. As Lincoln explain the declaration, propose a standard Maxim of equality for free society, which should be familiar to all and revered by all, constantly looks to constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening in its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. to Lincoln, this promise of equality was not merely important to the nation. It was foundational, there was no American nation without the Declaration of Independence. A year after his debates in Springfield, Lincoln made this strikingly clear. He, he declared, think nothing of me. Take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you choose, if you will, but heed these sacred principles. You may not you may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. Unfortunately, President Lincoln would later pay that ultimate price. So to what almost 700,000 Americans, decades of racial strife followed by Time and again, the Declaration of Independence remained our national North Star. Or as Pauline Mayer describes it, our American scripture. We did not surrender our inheritance as equal men endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. Neither slavery nor Jim Crow defeated us. We recognize it's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared decades ago that the magnificent Words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were a promissory note to which every American was to fall ere
the history of our nation is our shared struggle to live up to that promise. It is a slow, arduous battle, but we have yet to fail. Today, there's a notable pessimism about the state of our country, and cynicism about our founders. There are some who would even cancel at founders. We are all aware of those who assert, much like garrison, that America is a racist and irredeemable nation. But there are many more of us, I think, who feel that America is not so broken, as it is adrift at sea. Some of you come from my generation, you remember reciting the pledge of allegiance, the Fourth of July celebrations, and the shared belief that our nation was destined for greatness. Others of you are younger, you lived in the twilight of that life or feel nostalgia for a world that you've missed, or you don't remember that all. In all cases, we sense among as an American spirit we cannot quite capture. We sense amidst the noise and din telling us that truth does not exist, that there is something true, something transcendent, something solid, something that pulls us together, rather than divides us.
As I said, my wife and I this summer, were inspired when we saw in the RV parks, the people who still hold these values and who still believe, as they flew proudly so many flags in the RV parks, I lay no claim to the answer or to the gospel. But this I do know for whatever it is worth, the Declaration of Independence has weathered every storm for 245 years. It birthed the great nation, it abolish the sin of slavery, and it endeavored to address its effects. While we have failed the declaration, time and again and the ideals of the Declaration, time and again, I know of no time when the ideals have failed us. Ultimately, the declaration and doors because it articulates truth, it was not a grand philosophy contrived by clever academics. It came from aniseed and shared values. unlike so many of the theories of more recent vintage as Lincoln taught us, the declaration reflects the noble understanding of the justice of the Creator, to his creatures, and the enlightened belief that nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and degraded, and in bruited by its fellows. The declaration simply recounts what the church has taught for millennia, and what we once universally accepted as a given, all men are created, and all men are created equal. No force on earth can take away what God has given us. Thus, I leave you with this thought. The Declaration of Independence may or may not be the American scripture, as Pauline mares book is entitled, but establishes a moral ideal that we as citizens are duty bound to uphold and sustain. We may fall short. But our imperfection does not relieve us of our obligation. My nuns and my grandparents lived out their sacred vocation in a time of Stark racial animus, and did so with pride with dignity and with honor. May we find it within ourselves to emulate them. Lincoln put it best as in his Gettysburg Address. It is rather for us to be that here, dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead, we find increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dad will not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people by the people, for the people shall not perish from The Earth May we as a people, and a nation endure and prosper. May God bless you. May God and may God bless and preserve our great country. Thank you and go Irish. Okay.
Justice Thomas, thank you. as we always do we have time for questions from the audience. Now, with COVID. This a little bit more difficult, we can pass microphones around. So I believe you were given a card. When you entered the building, there's a way to, basically electronically submit questions to me, I have them in front of me. And there if you want to write your questions, you can do so on the card, and we'll pass them this way. And then we'll collect them. And we'll go through as many questions as time allows. And I see you can vote on the questions too. So I'll relay them to the justice. And if you put your name on the question, I'll relay your name as well. Okay. Shall we begin? Our first question was from David Greene. What if any threats Do you foresee to the autonomy of the judicial system in the United States over the next 10 to 20 years?
Oh, I think one of the difficulties that you all are going to have to deal with is judges. It's going beyond what article three requires and staying within the limitations on judges. There's always a temptation, I think, to go beyond we see it with the development of substantive due process, Justice Scalia railed about it. And I think that when we do that, and we begin to venture into political, the legislative or executive branch lanes, and resolving things that are better left to those branches, where people actually have some input and some opportunity to participate in the elective, vectorial process as to who those leaders are, those of us particularly in the federal judiciary with lifetime appointments, are asking for trouble. I think a lot of the pressured the that on the nomination and selection process is because of that, I think the court was, was thought to be the least dangerous branch, and we may have become the most dangerous. And I think that's problematic. And hence, the craziness during my confirmation was one of the results of that. It was a it was absolutely about abortion. A matter I had not thought deeply about it at the time. But I think a lot of it's our own doing. And I think the threats are you we have lost the capacity, even I think as as leaders to not allow others to manipulate our institutions when we don't get the outcomes that we like, when, for example. President Roosevelt threatened to pack the court there was enough sense of what the court meant and what separation of powers meant. to criticize him today, you see almost no criticism or very little when you have those kinds of conversations. So I think part of it's our own the judge's own doing by venturing in areas we should not have entered into
your lecture you interspersed a little bit about your own life with your understanding the declaration. Yeah, there's a few personal questions here. Please answer, if you will. But of course, don't if you want. The question is, you left the Catholic Church when you were in the seminary, or maybe right after you left the seminary, when you're at Holy Cross, what brought you back to the church?
Oh, I think I'd be growing up a little bit growing up. I think you do things that 19 that 25 years later, you undo. And I will simply repeat what I said in the class. If I had a friend like Maggie Garnett, I probably more than likely would never have left the church. And they I just think that when you're 19, and you're upset, and you're angry, you do things that are not the best thing to do. And my grandfather understood that but at 19 I did not. And like I've said to my law clerks, I ran away from the church and 1968 and crawled back 25 years later. And I also say to them sort of rather straightforwardly that, they say, Why did you come back? I said, I ran out of options. They were no, it says though it was a Hobson's choice. It was the only way out. And I'm glad I did. I just regret that I ever left.
This question is for Margaret Mathis. I think a student. I like this one. If you could go back in time, would you be a federalist or an anti federalist?
Well, that's really interesting. I don't know, I think those were different times, I'd probably be closer to the anti Federalists. I'd be I'm not I mean, I'm not against the union. But I do think that there's limitations. And I can't say I was totally with Jefferson. But they, you know, I just think that we see, we see what the anti Federalists were concerned about, with the with the expansion of the Commerce Clause with the effort to expand, you know, the power of the national government and the reach of the court through the doctrines of incorporation and other theories, substantive due process. And the other branches going into areas that are somewhat attenuated from the limited powers EPA supposed to have the enumerated powers. So I think that they you begin to see in retrospect, some of the points I was reading one of the letters written by a, an appeals court judge in Virginia, I think, criticizing marshals of Chief Justice, Marshalls opinion in McCulloch versus Maryland. And what was ironic about his some of the points that he was making and criticizing the decision, and it's pointing out how that was, would mean that the government, the federal government, the national government, would expand into all these areas. And it has already expanded into those areas. And those were like, his list of terrible's. And it's now our list of realities. So I think you could object I'm not going to, to be too harsh in my criticism, because that did wind up creating a country. And it is flawed. It's very flawed, like every human institution. And I've been on the court for 30 years. It's flawed. But you know, I will defend it because knowing all the disagreements, it works, it worked may work sort of like a car with three wheels, but it still works. Somehow you sort of hobble along and you recognize its imperfection. And I think we should be careful destroying our institutions because they don't give us what we want when we want it. I think we should be really, really careful. And because I'll say what my grandfather said, After you've done that, and now what, you know, what's your next step? So The so I'm not I can't be too forceful in my criticism of the Federalists.
Good. Yeah.
But I do tend toward, you know, I didn't go watch Hamilton, I can tell you that.
Okay, this question was submitted anonymously. How often do oral arguments actually change your mind?
If you know it's sort of like when I used to watch basketball a lot, they talk about the big man paint, you know, like you do your work early and you get low and then it's over. I mean, the guy you can, you can try to block Shaquille O'Neal, three feet from the basket. Well, good luck with that. You got he did his work early, and he got low and he received the pass. I think that the real work is in the briefs. The real work is what is in the written product. And occasionally, someone comes up that we had one guys many years ago, when Chief Justice Rehnquist was was there. We agreed it was I think it was an afternoon case. And we all kind of agreed, oh, this is an easy one. It's a nine oh, firm. Well, the guy gets up there and turns it in, you know, his own case, if he sat down and said, I'm done. I'm submitting on the brief, he would have 190, affirm, he opened his mouth and loss, reverse nine zero. So that is the biggest swing I have seen is sometimes you just shut up and sit down.
A question from Katie Alexander. Has there been times in your career when the legal questions you must resolve conflict with your Catholic faith? If so, how do you proceed?
No, not really. I think if it did, if I think if it gets something conflict, that great. Where I fundamentally think it's wrong, I would just go and do something else. The I'm at a point, you know, I said that early on, and I still believe that, but I have lived up to my oath. There are some things that conflict very strongly with my personal opinion, my policy preferences. And those were very, very hard, particularly early on. But you don't I don't do a lot of hand wringing in my opinions and tell people Oh, I'm really sad. That's not the role of a judge. I mean, you do your job and you go cry alone. But there have been some words. But there have been some that broke my heart. And that just were really, really high. And I've been there sometimes, particularly early, you sit with the more seasoned members of the court, and you explain to them what's wrong. And when I first became a judge in 1990. My colleague, Judge Silberman, Larry Silberman, sat down with me. And one of the things that's really interesting is no judge ever tells you how to do your job. The only people who tells you tell you how to do your job, or people who've never been judges. But anyway, he said to me, he said, I'm just going to give you a little bit of advice, unsolicited advice. Before you sit on a case, ask yourself this question, what is my role, in this case, as a judge, not as a citizen, not as us as a as a as a Catholic or any What is my role, in this case, as a judge? That is a hard one. Because if you stay in that lane, there are some things that you as a citizen, or you as a personal preference would want to come out a different way. And that's what I've tried to do the other thing, and then I'll be quiet about it. But I have four law clerks, four wonderful law clerks. And they're very, very bright like your students. And they watch you I tell them to watch me. And that's something my grandfather always told us watch me and do as I do not, as I say. So he didn't really mean that do as I don't do as I say, part I can tell you that. But the I tell my clerks that you watch me for a full year, and my job is that you leave here with a clean with clean hands, clean hearts and clear conscience. We will never do anything that's improper. And I encouraged them to tell me every clerk works on every case. So if you see something, your job is to let me know. And we sit and we talk about it. But in 30 years or 30 terms, we I don't think a single Clerk will ever tell you we have that anything other than our job.
This question is for Andrew, no, no last name. What is the most significant misconception you think the American public holds about the court? Or its role in democracy?
Well, that could be a long list. You know, I don't blame them. Um, I love one of the reasons I like RV. Well, I gotta tell you one little thing about RV now cut, you have to remind me, so I go in these truck stops because I have a I actually have a bus. And I have a 30 year old bus too. So it is. So I'm in a truck stop. I'm in like a pilot truck stop. Because you like to act like you're one of the big truckers You know, you're getting, you're getting diesels you put on like your diesel gloves, and you sort of kick the tires, I still can't figure out what that does. But you got to act professional. So you take on your fuel, and you go in you pay and Susie I mean 100 100 gallons of diesel fields, a lot of money, I can tell you that much. But at least it's not a boat or plane. So you go in and you're paying. And so the on the way and we were in Pennsylvania or maybe New York, and we passed this black gentleman who was also driver and he says to me, he looks at me said you'd had judge literally was one of my favorite moments. And he said I heard you were big rig man like me, but I didn't know I think I'd ever meet you have all the accolades you can get in life. Oh, you're a big rig man like me. So I really started kicking the tires. So would you ask me? I forget what you asked me. Was that? What is the most misconception? I you know, I think that they think that we make policy. I think the media makes it sounds as though you are just always going right to your personal oppression. So preference. So if they think you're anti abortion or something, personally, they think that that's the way you always will come out, they think you're for this or for that, that thank you if you become like a politician. And I think that's that's a problem too. When I think you're gonna you're gonna jeopardize any faith in the legal institutions. The and I think the media and the interest groups further than and give you an example of, of the Sophie, I know there's a football game this weekend. And Nebraska is playing Oklahoma. Oh, you all have one too. So at any rate, let's say this weekend that you know, like if a referee makes a call that favors Notre Dame and Notre Dame wins. People would say, Well, that was a fine referee. That's what you're supposed to do as a fan. But the but if the referee makes that very same call, and it works against Notre Dame. Oh, my goodness. I mean, this guy can't even see it. Come on. Anybody could have seen this exact same column. That's because we're fans. We're not acting as judges, we want a particular outcome. And so we look at the outcome. And that totally color is what we think the level the quality of the refereeing was. So if it's for us, it was excellent referee, that was against us. Horrible, absolutely hard, but the guy should give it up. So the but that's not what you can do when looking at cases. But that's precisely read any article about sort of one of the big cases and that's precisely what you have. It's like if the outcome is what I want it to be excellent work. You know, another Marbury vs. Madison, if it is against what you for, look, Dred Scott all over again, this is horrible. I mean, that's just the way it works. But I think that's wrong. I think if you go back and you look at some of the New York Times articles in the 30s and 40s, on Supreme Court cases, the few that I've read are excellent, because they summarize the case they talk about the arguments, they summarize the whole length, and then they there may be a short paragraph on the implications. Now put that side by side with what you would get today. So I think that's problematic and that sort of encourages these preconceptions about the court. That's all just personal preferences.
This question might be related. It's by Blake Ziegler, who's one of our student fellows. A core tenant of originalism is a hesitancy to legitimize rights not in TRY NOT enumerated in the Constitution, claiming that if such rights are desired, the Constitution should be amended and not revised by the courts. What's your response to supporters of judicial activism who say the difficulty of the amendment process makes it unattainable goal during this age of partisan division?
Well, I mean, how many times is the constitution been amended? I mean, so yeah, it's not unattainable because it's been amended. So maybe in this political climate, the same climate that would do things that that, you know, I mentioned before and as far as leadership, but I don't think it's unattainable. Just I think the, the the rich changing the age at the voting age, that was attainable. It was intended to be difficult. So you're not amending it every few minutes. It's not like a statute or something. It's not by a majority. So yeah, it is difficult, but obviously not impossible, or we would not have amendments. And the so I don't really buy that argument. And even if that were the case, you'd lose your constitution, if judges can amend it, because in effect, what you're saying by that argument, is you accept amendments by nine members of the Supreme Court. Well, that's really outside of our process. And, by definition, it's illegitimate. And that's the criticism of Justice Scalia. Even if you want someone else to do it to substitute for us Don't let us do it. You know, I give you an example. You know, the we were we have no idea half the time of what going what's going on in pop culture. I have no idea. People start talking about these rap artists. I have no idea who they are. I don't listen to that kind of music. And you don't wait. We're not in touch with each other. It is the public it is. You've heard the term marble palace. This is as close to it as you will get. I go in, I go in the basement, I go up to my office. I end the day I go down to the basement, I get in the car and I come home. We don't we don't have townhall meetings. We don't go and meet with constituents. We don't take polls. We don't we don't visit with the local in the local areas to see what our constituents feel. We don't take the pulse of the community. We're supposed to be outside of that. And you don't want us making those decisions. We are incapable of doing that.
This next question? No. Name, but it relates to what you just said. Do you think it would be better if more regular Americans read Supreme Court opinions and recognize the justices? The second question, should justices meet regular people by traveling through flyover country?
Oh God, I love flyover country. That's why I got I've been we've been motorhoming for almost 22 years. And we've done 42 states I have been I love flyover country, people my wife said that is really flat across North Dakota, it looked fine to me. So we've been we've been in Walmart parking lots, we've stayed flying Jays, pilots, RV parks, and virtually every all of the 42 states that we've been to we you know, we you go to parks that have fifth wheelers, trailers, pop ups, people live, camping out of motorcycles, you meet them, it's not really a problem until they recognize you. Once they recognize you, then it messes everything up. But that's the world I'm from. I love that world. And it's really interesting when you listen to them about our country. That's why I mentioned the flags. And in West Ridge in Tennessee and North Carolina and the mountains, those people have a different perspective. And it's really interesting to see how they are reacting to these sorts of things. Do I think that about regular people writing opinions, that really leads me to the type of clerks I hire. I we write in order to I think that the regular people have been disenfranchised, right that we write these opinions that are almost like hieroglyphics. And they're like, double entendres and negative pregnancies and levels of generality. And then love Latin sprinkled in for good. So what we try to do, and this is again, editing and is the approach it is to take this I tell my clerks and I'll end it with this that it is not genius to put A $2 idea and a $20 sentence, it is genius to put a $20 idea in a $2 sentence without losing any of the meaning. So the audience that we write for our fellow citizens, not the law reviews, not not just the legal community, but our fellow citizens. So, I mean, we were at Gettysburg, one year, right at Little Round Top. And a guy, he was a bit overweight. So I mean, I'm not against overweight people, you got it. But the, so he runs up the hill, and he's out of breath. And he says, I'm not a lawyer. But I want you to sign this. For me, it was a copy of one of my opinions, it was on the federal Maritime Commission or something. And he said, I want you to sign this. And I want to thank you for making it understandable by a regular citizen. I said, Wow, thank you, you know, it really made me feel good that a federal, you know, like a regular citizen, who was not a lawyer understood that opinion. And I said, Why are you reading this opinion? And why do you want me to sign this opinion on the federal Maritime Commission, and he said, it looks at Gettysburg, and he waves his arm. That's what this was all about. And said, I'll be dang we fought the civil war over the federal Maritime Commission. But the thing, that's all to make the point that I really liked the fact when people regular people find the work accessible, that's what we should do. And so I hire clerks from regular backgrounds, hence, my trip to the mountains of Tennessee, and North Carolina, because I wound up having so many clerks from that region. And none of them even knew each other. And they come from very regular backgrounds. They go to schools, like last year, I had no clerk that went, they went to South Carroll, University of South Carolina undergrad, University of let's see, I'm trying to think of where all these kids, these kids come and go, so fast, failed, went to University of Minnesota. But every single one went to a state school. And they went on scholarship. And those are the kind and then they go on to other schools. But that's what I like. And because they have the ability and the capacity to write in normal English, and to think with common sense and judgment, so that I that's really important, too.
How about a couple more? This is from Andres. So, Solorzano, any words of wisdom for young aspiring lawyers and law students aspiring to do good work while waiting too? Well, wanting to follow the faith and path of sanctity? path to path of sanctity?
Wow. Well, I'm a total failure. So you know, I just think i think that the, for me,
the I gotta hate to say this, but my favorite prayers that let me have humility. It is just, I have it on my wall in my office. So I'm a big believer in saying that you know, that I can't, and that I need the having having been humbled. I have every reason to be humbled. And I think you start with that and right, being true, being honest with yourself, about what you know, what you don't know. And also, but not lose sight of what's good, the good in people, right? We've gotten to a point in society where we're really good at finding something that separates us from others. And when I was the only black kid in my Seminary in Savannah in the mid 60s, in fact, that, to my knowledge, the only black kid in a white school, I could be wrong on that. But I didn't know of any others. Every time I walked into a room, I had to look for something I had in common. And that's the way we grew up with. What do we have in common with the other person? Now look at us, we just seem like we keep dividing, subdividing subcategories, this sub sub categories of differences and emphasizing those differences. So I think you look for the good in people, I think you even if others around you don't do things in a in a proper way, you still try to do it. And I think you beat you're honest with yourself about learning. You know, as I said, and I met and I wish I had a friend in college like Maggie Garner and you ask you Am I do I help make my friends better or worse? And that's a hard one. And it puts a load on you. But I don't know, I just I struggle. I mean, I'm, I go to Mass, I tried to do things. Try to do the right thing. But I think it starts with humility. I truly believe that.
Two final questions. First one for me. Will you come back? Will you come back? Oh,
yeah. Well, you know, I will I have to tell you, I spend very little time on university campuses, and that's probably not good. I think the I think the when I was in college, the University was where you exchange ideas. It's like your class like being here. With money, one minor outbursts. Just like being here today. This is what universities were. And you thought about things, you debated things, you learn how to engage, you learn how to disagree without being a jerk. You learn how to grow. And I don't know whether or not that's totally the case. But I can tell you, I've had that positive kind of experience here. And every time I've been here, and I have to tell you, a lot of it. Were those kids in your class. And the brightness. I mean, it's I don't know what their views are. And I really don't, that's their business. What I am interested in exchanging these ideas, letting them think and form their own opinions. And that's what the university I thought was supposed to do for all of us. So the answer is, Yes, I will. And plus I have my kids are here, Nicole and Rec and Matt, Steve, and Mara, so I've got a lot of my clerks here so I do have to come back so I like it. Yeah, I would have I'll tell you if I had seen Notre Dame I would have gotten there was no way I would have signed everything I needed to sign for I left campus. This I mean, maybe in January I would be have a different opinion. But and this is a I was so the first time y'all may not notice but I drove my bus on this campus. years ago, I parked at the police station. And we went to the Grotto and that did it for me. The Grotto pretty much ended it and then going to the chapel. Pretty much did it for me.
Okay, last last question. Don't Don't mess this one up. What's the score Saturday's game
