Perhaps no concept in American politics is more familiar and appealing—yet more vacuous of meaning—than “the rule of law.” A close rival might be the equally indispensable but ambiguous word “constitution.”

While rhetorical ambiguity sometimes proves useful in politics, sustained disregard of the meaning of these fundamental ideas has a demoralizing effect on republican government. Notwithstanding the pragmatic, if not providential, ability of the American people to select worthy leaders through most of their history, to misunderstand or ignore fundamental principles of law and constitutionalism is to begin to undermine what Abraham Lincoln identified as “the strongest bulwark of any Government, and particularly of those constituted like ours”—namely, “the attachment of the People.”

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