Rather than being a negative thing, Black views the subjectivity of Constitutional interpretation to reflect the very freedoms we as Americans say it embodies in ink. Although when Black penned his book, blacks and women had attained all the rights formerly available only to white men, a different interpretation of "freedom" still depended upon one's color or gender.
"Sure there is a document called the Constitution. That's no myth. It's in Washington, under glass, if you want to visit it. But the Constitution that binds us is the one we have in our heads. That mythic Constitution performs functions no 200-year-old parchment ever could." (Black, "Our Constitution: The Myth that Binds Us")
As he does in an earlier chapter, Black lauds the way that the Constitution of the United States is so open to interpretation by modern generations. He does not disparage the original work that made the basis of our nation's laws; rather, he applauds the foresight of the writers for penning the Constitution in such a manner that it lives on in the collective unconscious of the American people, ready to "change" to reflect their morals. The Constitution, as envisioned in the minds of Americans from farm workers to doctors to politicians, serves to unite our nation more than any written set of rules could. The Constitution that lives in the mythos of the American conscience serves not only as a code of conduct, but as a reflection of our national pride and values. In Eric Black's modern America, we still struggle to define what freedom really means.
"I am here, Sir Governor, because the cry of an oppressed people hath disturbed me in my secret place; and beseeching this favor earnestly of the Lord, it was vouchsafed...
Hawthorne, a descendant of one of the judges of the infamous Salem witch trials (and who added a "w" to his name to negate the association), was keenly aware of the damage oppression and tyranny could wreak upon
society. In his
short story "The Gray Champion," Hawthorne opens with the inhabitants of a small New England town who blindly subjugate themselves to a cruel governor. As the
governor and his men march through town, they are met with the visage of an old man. Despite his fragile and elderly appearance, the specter has a commanding presence as he demands the rights of the oppressed people. None dare oppose this phantasm. One wonders if the societal bias Black expressed in his more recent essay were seen the same way by Hawthorne a century earlier.
"His hour is one of
darkness, and
adversity, and peril. But should domestic tyranny oppress us, or the invader's step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come, for he is the type of New England's hereditary spirit; and his shadowy march, on the eve of danger, must ever be the pledge, that New
