A Flawed Constitution: Lincoln and Our Founding Document’s Legacy

To commemorate Constitution Day, the Rockefeller Center hosted Professor James H. Read for a talk titled “Making the Best of a Flawed Constitution: Lincoln, Majority Rule, and Slavery.” Read, a political scientist from the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University, examined how Abraham Lincoln used the Constitution’s imperfections to fight slavery and maintain democracy. The event was moderated by Dartmouth government Professor Russell Muirhead, who described Read’s recent book as one of those rare books that “packs a huge punch,” the kind that makes you put it down every other page just to think. He added, to mild audience discomfort, that he sometimes read it in the bathtub. Perhaps not the image Read hoped would linger, but a memorable comment from Muirhead all the same.

The title of the book references Lincoln’s first inaugural, where Muirhead described it as a part he had previously never paid much attention to. The presentation itself was not riveting based on how he talked and presented. Some students were more interested in their snacks. What he said, however, had applications that can still be applied today. He started off by talking about the end of the Constitutional Convention, and the beginning of Constitution Day. Read avoided framing the Constitution as something to either be venerated or boldly opposed. Admittedly, he found a middle ground few in today’s society are ever able to achieve.

Read pointed to Lincoln’s example of turning the Constitution into a tool against slavery, even though it granted significant power to slave states. He listed compromises such as the Three-Fifths Clause, the Fugitive Slave Clause, and the continuation of the international slave trade as evidence that the Constitution was deeply flawed. Read also cited James Madison’s observation that the framers avoided naming slavery outright because many considered it improper to describe one human being as the property of another.

Read worked diligently to situate the debate on the Constitution in a way we all could understand. He spoke both of those who wanted to essentially venerate what we, present-day viewers of the Constitution, would view as a bare bones version, and of those who despised it. He cited the facts that there was no original Equal Protection Clause, no Fourteenth Amendment, no real protections for women, among other issues. Read used the words of William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879), describing it as “an agreement with Hell” because of its complicity with slavery.

Read asked whether there was any way to use the Constitution before the Civil War as a vehicle against slavery. He pointed to Frederick Douglass, who argued that slavery was fundamentally incompatible with a republican form of government, something written into the Constitution. That vision, Read suggested, ultimately won after the Civil War, when the federal government turned decisively against the institution, but Douglass’s vision at that moment was far before his time.

Lincoln, too, hoped to harness federal authority, though at first he dreamed of a peaceful, even bloodless, end to slavery. The South, however, had other plans. That hope collapsed when seven states refused to honor the results of the 1860 election. Their secession set war in motion. In his first major wartime address, delivered on July 4, Lincoln framed the conflict not only as a battle over slavery but as an effort to “save democracy” itself.

Even as a young Illinois legislator, Lincoln feared that Americans might one day tire of the rules of democracy. He wasn’t wrong to worry, especially given everything that happened as he became president. Yet opposition to slavery did not become central to his politics until the 1850s, particularly after the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened the door to expanding slavery in the territories. From then on, Lincoln argued that slavery threatened the rights of white citizens as well as Black, corroding the very idea of republican equality.

Garrison and Douglass thundered for immediate emancipation everywhere. Their stance had justice on its side but, as Read dryly noted, no power. Lincoln, by contrast, offered something less fiery but more workable: a politics that could win over a majority of white Americans. It was not noble rhetoric alone that ended slavery, but majoritarian arithmetic. That coalition, Read concluded, proved far more effective at reshaping the republic.

Lincoln himself called the Three-Fifths Compromise unfair several times throughout his career and did not shy away from critiquing the Constitution because of similar clauses. Yet, Read noted, Lincoln continued to support it because the document, flawed as it was, preserved the principle of majority rule. In his first inaugural address in 1861, Lincoln wrote that “a majority, always changing easily, is the only true sovereign of a free people.” He did not mean that the majority was inherently wise or just, but that its decisions could always be revised. That, for Lincoln, was democracy’s saving grace.

For this author personally, I believe it is worth asking what that means in our own moment. We live in a time when the very notion of majority rule feels fragile, when elections have been disputed, numerous institutions are distrusted, and the rules themselves are endlessly litigated by both sides of the aisle. Lincoln’s insight is bracing even now: democracy is not about permanent wisdom but about revisability. A majority may stumble, but its decisions can be undone through the same process that made them. What matters most is that the process survives.

In an age of polarization and instant outrage, Lincoln’s patience with imperfection offers a lesson often ignored. He did not demand a flawless Constitution before he used it; he accepted its blemishes and worked through them to achieve something greater, not delegitimizing the process. Our challenge today is similar: to recognize that democratic legitimacy rests not on the brilliance of one election result or court decision but on the willingness to abide by outcomes we dislike, trusting they can be revised tomorrow.

Too often in our society today, we see the opposite instinct: to delegitimize the process itself whenever it produces an unwelcome result. Whether it is progressives dreaming of scrapping the Electoral College or election deniers casting doubt on any loss, both sides reveal an impatience Lincoln would have recognized—and rejected. If Lincoln could call the Constitution unfair and still defend it, we might pause before discarding our own constitutional guardrails in pursuit of ideological purity.

We have to stop. The Constitution’s endurance depends not on perfection but on citizens who, however grudgingly, accept its rules. That, as Lincoln reminded us, is the saving grace for majority rule: that a majority, always changing, remains the sovereign of a free people.

This was not just a theory or a belief that was nice. Read emphasized that the Constitution, even the smaller and less extensive one at the time, gave Congress real levers to pull. Article I, Section 8 conferred power over the District of Columbia and the territories, and Lincoln argued this authority could be used to prohibit slavery in any area not yet a state. Some scholars and armchair historians dismiss this as an empty gesture, but Read assured us in the audience slaveholders did not. They saw it as the first step in a relentless process: every new territory entering the Union as free soil. To them, it looked like a rapidly moving train, and they wanted off before it reached its destination.

That sense of inevitability, Read argued, helps explain why seven states seceded in 1861. When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, ending slavery became not just an implication of the war but its explicit aim. Read described it as a “creative stretch” of the Constitution by pushing the limits without breaking them. Lincoln even refused suggestions to cancel or suspend the 1864 presidential election, reasoning that to abandon democracy would destroy the very thing the Union was fighting to preserve.

By contrast, Read suggested that today’s Constitution is “significantly less flawed.” He drew examples like the Bill of Rights, which provided more rights toward minorities and women than during Lincoln’s day. However, he pointed to the Electoral College, where Wyoming’s representation outweighs California’s, as an example of enduring imbalance. Yet even here, he argued, the structure is flexible. Just as Lincoln leveraged the document’s ambiguities, modern reformers can fight for causes the Constitution never names outright. Environmental protection, for instance, has no explicit mention in the text, but the framework leaves space for legislators and citizens to make it a priority.

And yet, despite its flaws and omissions, the Constitution continues to allow us to do several key things like Lincoln once did. One of its central purposes is to prevent the accumulation of power. The semi-autonomous structure of the Senate makes it more difficult for any one faction to dominate, while the Constitution’s requirement of regular elections ensures that leadership remains accountable. By placing the administration of elections in the hands of the states rather than the White House, the system builds in safeguards against tyranny and guarantees the regular transfer of authority.

Looking at the present state of the country, Read called to mind that Lincoln believed deeply in the power of public opinion, a belief still relevant today. Yet Read warned that the pathological ways we communicate online may pose greater dangers to democracy than laws in the parchment of the Constitution itself. In this light, old-fashioned, face-to-face politics remains as essential now as it was in Lincoln’s day, offering a reminder that the Constitution’s endurance ultimately depends on how citizens choose to engage with one another.

In questions, Read gave thoughtful answers, but lacked a lot of hope. He said that he felt like he had not studied a society as deeply divided as before 1860. His comparison between the divisive era raised concerns that there is no longer agreement on basic facts. When pressed in questions, he mentioned that those real conversations are more possible on the local level. He talked about his experience on his local planning commission where he has to work with people who likely vote on different national issues.

One of the final questions asked whether his talk was a critique of originalism. Read responded that originalism as practiced today seems “highly selective.” Lincoln himself believed the founders’ opinions deserved respect, but not worship. Muirhead added, essentially finalizing the talk, that while some veneration is justified, a Constitution worth defending is one that continues to work, not one that freezes us in the past.