W.D.Moore – APSA-03– Slaughter-House – p.8
advanced, impaired, or otherwise altered norms of republican governance. Fifth, individuals have
evaluated this amendment’s authority in terms of its consistency with standards of political
morality -- such as norms of equality, justice, and republicanism. Moral considerations, conceived
as aspects of constitutional governance and more generally, have never been far from the surface of
controversies over the fourteenth amendment’s authority and meaning.
Sixth is the idea of constructive or hypothetical constitutional authorization. It may
account for positions reasonably attributable to “the people” beyond those expressed through
conventionally recognized channels of constitutional authorization. On one version, this model
provides a means of remedying restrictions on access to political processes tied to under-
representation of the whole “people.” Other versions embrace as authoritative unexpressed
commitments of “the people” and/or positions capable of receiving approval by them in the future.
The first two of these six sets of criteria, in addition to supporting claims of partial
authority, point in similar ways toward questions about the content, scope, meaning, and
implications of the norms authorized by the political practices at issue. Thus each distinctively
frames questions about relationships among process and substance, the authority of text and its
authoritative meaning, origins and subsequent interpretive processes. Each also grounds these
forms of inquiry in principles of popular sovereignty. Accordingly, each provides criteria with
which to explore the extent to which presumptions of the sovereignty of “the people” have been
realized (or not) in connection with the fourteenth amendment’s addition to the U.S. Constitution
or through its subsequent interpretation.
The third, fourth, and fifth criteria, by contrast, are joined by a shared focus on matters of
substantive congruence. Thus each depends on interpretation of the relevant norms: those
purportedly brought about by the fourteenth amendment, the imperatives of other parts of the U.S.
Constitution, other constitutional norms, principles of constitutionalism, and standards of political
morality. Each frames in a different way relationships among constitutional meaning and authority,
as with relationships among each and surrounding norms and practices.
The sixth criterion, as conceived for purposes of this essay, bridges distinctively matters of
Convention