Let me begin by saying there is a great deal of merit to Professor Jenkins's idea. We have long known that many policies have been placed in constitutions because they would be relatively hard to change. In some cases, divisive policies have been placed in constitutions because framers wished to enact a durable compromise that they hoped would discourage future contention.The archetypal example would be the “great compromise” over the apportionment of members in the Senate and House of Representatives at the Constitutional Convention. See, for example, Broadus Mitchell and Louise Mitchell, A Biography of the Constitution of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 66–77. However, slavery may present an even better case. See William M. Wiecek, “The Witch at the Christening: Slavery and the Constitution's Origins,” in Leonard W. Levy and Dennis J. Mahoney, eds., The Framing and Ratification of the Constitution (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 167–84. In other instances, constitutions have recorded the uncompromising victory of one set of political principles over another.With respect to the Founding, the classic version of this thesis remains Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1913). In still other respects, constitutions have been repositories for consensual political creeds.See, for example, Carl Van Doren, The Great Rehearsal: The Story of the Making and Ratifying of the Constitution of the United States (New York: Viking Press, 1948). The framing of constitutions have thus been motivated by a number of goals at the same time: dampening political conflict through a durable and authoritative adjudication of contentious issues, bolstering the regime's commitment to a class or social group through the imposition of a particular policy agenda, and increasing the legitimacy of the regime through the enactment of a societal consensus. To this list, Professor Jenkins adds a fourth possibility: that a particular political party, as an opportunistic organization of ambitious professionals, might dominate the framing of a new constitution in such a way as to disadvantage an opponent in otherwise free and open electoral competition. This is a very important suggestion and should not be lost while we, I think appropriately, set aside the historically specific description and claims in which he outlines the idea.