An article from last October's "Keeping Faith with the Constitution in Changing Times" symposium, co-sponsored by Constitutional Interpretation and Change Issue Group and Vanderbilt University Law School. The symposium was held at Vanderbilt University Law School in October 2006.

Frank I. Michelman, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University, examines notions of constitutional legitimacy in Fidelity and Legitimacy. Professor Michelman explains, “Not everything that might call itself a constitution or that has the formal look of one can be considered . . . capable of casting a mantle of legitimacy . . . over whatever so-called laws pass muster under its provisions. There will have to be something flattering that we can say about any given constitution, by way of explaining why compliance with that constitution should be allowed to work such a redemptive magic on laws including some . . . that we cannot bring ourselves to deny are bad and wrong. But what that necessary, flattering constitutional attribute is--what sort of attribute it is--is not so clear. People can and do have differing ideas about the necessary properties or features of a legitimation-worthy constitution, and those differing ideas apparently can connect with differing conceptions of constitutional fidelity.” Michelman then sets forth a number of such ideas and explores their implications for constitutional interpretation.