Constitutional law features prominently in the political culture of the United States, but there exists no sustained and robust tradition of theorising the material constitution of the polity. Most contemporary constitutional theorists remain committed to what Du Bois referred to as ‘constitutional metaphysics’ in his Black Reconstruction. Instead of attending to historically specific and determinate social relations, such theorists emphasise putative ‘original public meanings’ or an accretive ‘living constitution’. Alternative possibilities for constitutional theory may be identified by reappraising the insights and limitations of older analyses of American constitutionalism by Beard, Llewellyn and Hartz. These possibilities are not premised on the fetishisation of constitutional meaning, on fidelity to the framers’ white supremacist and antidemocratic project or on a commitment to the notion that the constitution is perpetually perfectible.

Kant is critical of many of the practices of Christianity in his time. But when we appreciate the dynamic relation between rational and revealed religion as Kant conceives them, the apparent opposition becomes more questionable and raises more questions than it answers. Kant’s project in the Religion bears important affinities with the religious philosophy of Moses Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn’s philosophy of church and state and their relation involve a number of radical proposals expressive of Enlightenment religious consciousness. Mendelssohn’s concept of enlightened Judaism bears interesting comparison to Kant’s enlightened reflections on Christianity. Mendelssohn defends a form of evidentialism even more radical that Clifford’s. He also defends a conception of the freedom of religious conscience that inspires Kant’s treatment of that topic in part four of the Religion. Conscience is an important theme in Kant’s moral philosophy, which has special application to religious conscience and the freedom of conscience Kant and Mendelssohn both defend.