Transubstantiation: The Dialectic of Constitutional Authority (original) (raw)

1988, The University of Chicago Law Review

In all nations, among all people, there are structures of dominion and subjection. There are those who occupy the centers of power, and those, far removed from power, whose presence at the periphery defines the limits of the people. There are those who rule, those who acquiesce, those who resist. There are those who know themselves to rule and those who know themselves to be subjected. There are those who have the title to rule and those who rule without title. All are bound. They are bound within sets of institutional structures that direct the exercise of power, and in consequence, resistance to it. 1 They are bound by histories that designate the temporal boundaries of the nation, the moment and the meaning of its founding, models of right governance, tyranny, and rebellion. They are bound within systems of meaning that designate the attributes and accouterments of power. Within our culture it signifies power to occupy the White House-whether or not one is President-to be met with a band playing "Hail to the Chief," to be saluted, to wear certain oddly shaped hats, to sign certain documents, and to be mentioned in others. In other cultures, it signifies power to be mentioned in the Friday prayers, to wear a hat shaped like a nightcap with earflaps, to have one's ring kissed, and to wash the feet of the poor. 2 Each of these significations, claimed or granted, is a title to the possession of power. But power belongs not, in the first instance, to these titled individuals, but to those who found nations, establish institutions, write histories, poems, and scripts, to those who tell and retell the myths of the American nation, to those who designate the signifiers of power and subordination. These individ