| Last week’s curation at RealClear’s American Civics portal begins with reporting from Tucker Eskew at Fortune Magazine on institutions that are attempting to bridge partisan divides in America. He specifically notes a recent conference in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania held by Braver Angels, an institution that brings red and blue Americans together in an effort to renew civic friendship. “What I witnessed there,” Eskew writes, “gave de Tocqueville reason to smile and Perot to cackle: the kind of cleansing storm needed to depolarize America.” As he notes, Braver Angels co-founder David Blankenhorn recently said that changing our politics will ultimately be driven from the bottom-up rather than the top-down: “American elites today are too implicated in the structures and mindsets of polarization to do much to change it, unless they are awakened and guided by ‘We the People.’” At the conference, “Blankenhorn told attendees the single thing he hears most after an event is, ‘We’re not as divided as we’ve been led to believe,’” which Eskew sees as a positive sign: “And for that reason, we can believe, as Lincoln did, that this nation ‘can long endure.’” At Public Discourse, Matthew Franck reviews Cass Sunstein’s latest book on the Constitution, “How to Interpret the Constitution,” which he calls a “very disappointing” work that has three major faults: “assertion, excessive repetition, and fallacious logic.” Franck notes that Sunstein deploys a “moral reading” framework to interpret the Constitution, a theory famously forwarded by Ronald Dworkin, which Franck describes as molding “the Constitution’s few alleged ‘majestic generalities’ (freedom of speech, due process, equal protection of the laws) to suit our own preferences.” But contrary to the job of legislators, Franck posits that judges “are not free to pursue justice as such, because they are enjoined to do only whatever the Constitution requires in the pursuit of justice – understood as norms of justice internal to the Constitution, not external to it.” Sunstein’s category errors mar what is a very important topic that needs to be understood – especially at a time when the Constitution needs to be taken far more seriously. In the News Matthew J. Franck, Public Discourse Tucker Eskew, Fortune Lori Higgins, Chalkbeat Detroit Larry Ferlazzo, Education Week Tony Williams, Constituting America Robert Curry, American Thinker John Tamny, RealClearPolitics John Baer, PennLive John D. Wilsey, Public Discourse Stephen Tootle, Constituting America Heather Mongilio, USNI News Benjamin and Jenna Storey, AEI Sharon Bishop-Baldwin, Sand Springs Leader Stephanie Slade, Law & Liberty Kristen Holder, AZ Animals American Cornerstone Institute This episode explores the legacy of President Abraham Lincoln, a patriot who helped win the Civil War... Bill of Rights Institute What is the purpose of government? In this episode of Primary Source Close Reads Explained, Kirk examines... Carl Cannon's Great American Stories The 1956 Republican National Convention was a first for San Franciso, a city not yet synonymous with liberal politics. Nor, ... It's Friday, August 18, 2023, the day of the week when I pass along quotations intended to be inspiring or ... It's Friday, August 11, the day of the week when I pass along quotations intended to be inspiring or elucidating. ... | 
