Kammen's A Machine That Would Go of Itself: Book Review

Introduction: The Constitution as Sacred Text

In the 21st century, the U.S. Constitution is often presented as a sacred document by both liberals and conservatives. This was evident in the controversy over the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor as the first Latina justice on the Supreme Court. Conservatives portrayed Sotomayor as an activist judge with little regard for the Founding Fathers' original intentions; liberals suggested that adding Sotomayor to the Court would fulfill the document's implied promise of liberty and justice for all. In his 1986 book, A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture, professor of American history Michael Kammen argues that such interpretations are culturally and historically constructed — not ideas that the Founding Fathers wove into the document at its birth.

Over the course of the book, which draws on popular culture as well as Supreme Court decisions, Kammen demonstrates that the relationship between the Constitution and the men who have served as governors and justices has been complicated, divisive, and contradictory in ways many Americans prefer to forget. By examining the intellectual history of how the Constitution has been viewed in American culture, Kammen hopes to offer a more realistic portrait of the document. He pays particular attention to the metaphors used to describe the Constitution, which function as a kind of Rorschach blot revealing how Americans see the nation.

Metaphors and Meanings of the Constitution

The Constitution has been seen as an instrument of law, an anchor of stability, and a great machine that operates independently of the men who run the government (Kammen 15–17). Today, the idea of the Constitution as a living document has grown more popular, but this image is also infused with the concept of the Constitution as something sacred — a kind of secular holy writ. In the "living document" metaphor, the Constitution grows organically in perfect harmony with its environment, independent of human agency and bias (Kammen 18).

An excellent example of the gap between the Constitution as idea and the Constitution as enforceable law appears in President Andrew Jackson's response to a Supreme Court order upholding Indian rights — an order that directly undercut Jackson's plans for Western expansion and settlement. Jackson famously proclaimed: "[Chief Justice] John Marshall has given his decision, now let him enforce it" (Rosen 2007). Jackson believed he wielded the almighty power of Commander in Chief, while the Supreme Court had no military capacity whatsoever. He envisioned the role of the Chief Executive as all-powerful in its interpretive authority over the Constitution, since the president was directly elected by the people and commanded the military, in contrast to the unelected Supreme Court. The notion of the balance of powers meant little to Jackson — there was no perfect interpretation of the Constitution beyond his own needs as president.

The title A Machine That Would Go of Itself is deeply ironic. Clearly the Constitution does not "go of itself" or even "grow by itself." It reflects the perspective of the times and the person doing the interpreting. Franklin Delano Roosevelt — so deeply respected by the public — did not ultimately succeed in his scheme to expand the number of Supreme Court justices to advance his legislative agenda. But his temptation to do so illustrates the frustration inherent in the constitutional relationships between the branches of government. The Court's determination to declare Roosevelt's legislative policy invalid threatened, in Roosevelt's view, to bring down a nation already in the grip of economic privation and to prevent him from fulfilling his elected duty. The fact that the American public revolted against Roosevelt's court-packing plan, even in the depths of the Great Depression, shows how the perceived sacredness of the document held greater sway over public opinion during that era than it had during the Jacksonian period — not because Americans had discovered something new in the document, but because cultural attitudes toward it had shifted (Kammen 199–200).

Contradictory Interpretations Across History

Constitutional interpretations have been famously inconsistent throughout the nation's history, particularly regarding slavery. Plessy v. Ferguson permitted racial segregation; Brown v. Board of Education found the doctrine of "separate but equal" to be a legal fiction. The Supreme Court even declared that men could be property in its Dred Scott ruling (Kammen 104). Pro-slavery advocates could simultaneously decry the abolitionists' call for a strong union and invoke the Court's constitutional decisions to defend themselves in the antebellum era. The Constitution proved a friend to proponents of civil rights during the 1950s and a foe in earlier eras. It has been used to invalidate progressive legislation as well as to deny African Americans the security of their rights. All of these examples demonstrate that constitutional interpretation has no linear legacy when it comes to civil liberties.

Conclusion: Toward a More Critical Reading

Kammen convincingly shows that how Americans feel about the Constitution is often very different from what the document actually contains. In doing so, he encourages readers to take a more critical view of their own conceptions of the Constitution and to question the assumption that we have always understood what the Founders envisioned. We are neglectful of our duties as citizens, Kammen argues, if we do not read the Constitution in light of its cultural history and cultivate greater reflexivity and self-criticism as a nation in the way we view it. The Constitution is malleable in the hands and minds of our elected and unelected officials — and in our own collective imagination as a culture.

Works Cited

Kammen, Michael. A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture. New York: Knopf, 1986.

Rosen, Jeffrey. PBS. "The First Hundred Years." The Supreme Court. 2007.

"Text of John Roberts' Opening Statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee." USA Today. September 12, 2005.