Yale law professor challenges history at Salisbury Forum

SALISBURY – Akhil Reed Amar urged a crowd of about 400 to rethink long-held assumptions about American history during a Salisbury Forum talk Friday, April 24, at The Hotchkiss School.

Amar, a professor of constitutional law and political science at Yale University, spoke on “America at 250,” centering his remarks on the idea that all men are created equal.

“What we all have in common is history,” he told the audience, which marked a record turnout for the Forum. “What we have in common is the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

Amar lamented that children, including his own, are not reading history books. He quizzed the audience on when the Declaration of Independence was signed, correcting those who answered July 4, 1776. Independence was declared on July 2, the language of the document was agreed upon on July 4, and it was signed in August of that year.

He then asked the audience what they felt was the most important sentence in the Declaration. Numerous answers were called out, but Jonathan Costa, director of EdAdvance, identified it as “...that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states.”

“That’s the key – to be sovereign,” Amar said.

After declaring independence, members of the Second Continental Congress “pledged their lives and sacred honor to the cause,” said Amar, and if they lost, they were signing their death warrants.

From the British perspective, the colonists were committing treason.

“All wars are supposed to have a purpose,” Amar said, which was met with snickers from crowd members reflecting on the present-day wars.

“Just wars have just purposes,” Amar clarified. “Reducing the ground to rubble is not winning a war.”

The professor also challenged assumptions about the Declaration’s authors. Jefferson, Franklin and Adams were not the only ones responsible for writing the Declaration of Independence, he said.

“People lied,” he added. “Thomas Jefferson lied more than most politicians – to friends, to Washington himself.”

Amar moved ahead to 1863 and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, describing the 16th president as “an originalist” who rooted his argument in the Declaration of Independence and the idea that “all men are created equal.”

Touching on the subject of slavery, Amar said its abolition was first conceived by the Quakers in Philadelphia in 1775.

“Don’t believe it was the British who first wanted to end slavery; it was the Americans,” he said. “We need to know what Americans did in its origins.”

Birthright citizenship is of special interest to Amar, having worked on several court cases on the issue. He praised U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black – who served on the court from 1937 to 1971 and presided over several landmark cases involving equality – calling him an originalist. Amar also described himself as an originalist and held up a pocket copy of the Constitution that he always carries with him.

Amar closed by pointing to the constitutional amendments that abolished slavery, established birthright citizenship and expanded voting rights to women and Black Americans, reinforcing his central theme that equality is rooted in shared humanity.

Amar is the author of several books. His second in a series of three is titled “Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920.” Complimentary copies were given out to the audience.