We’re on a journey, and that’s exactly how I think of our declaration, right? I mean, those three big ideas in the declaration that all of us are equal, that we all have unalienable rights that come from God, not from government, that we have the right to rule ourselves. I mean, those . . . are perfect ideas. They speak to every soul, they exclude no one, but it’s a journey to realize those ideas. It’s been a journey, and it will always be a journey.
— Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch
Last Wednesday, I sat down at the Supreme Court with Justice Neil Gorsuch to discuss his new children’s book, Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence, as well as the coming 250th birthday of the nation, his memories of the 1976 Bicentennial, the importance of patriotic education, the continuity of the Supreme Court, our age of political violence, and the continuing relevance of the declaration and the American Revolution.
Gorsuch noted his own National Review influences when he was the age of our video crew (Conor McNamara and John Bush), and recalled that “James Buckley was a deep influence on me as a judge and one of the most gentle men I knew.”
It was a busy day at the Court. The morning began with headline-grabbing decisions handed down that morning in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin (a unanimous Gorsuch opinion) and Louisiana v. Callais, the latter of which prompted a lengthy reading by Justice Elena Kagan of her angry dissent. That was followed by the term’s last two arguments, which ran overtime. When I arrived in mid-afternoon, there were still protesters and reporters out front for Callais and for the arguments in Noem v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, the cases involving Temporary Protected Status for Syrians and Haitians.
So, Justice Gorsuch was running late and apologetic for keeping us waiting when we sat down in the Court’s West Conference Room, surrounded by paintings of the (relatively) modern chief justices. From the artwork, I recognized it as the same room where I, as one of a dozen Holy Cross College students studying in D.C., had met with our fellow Crusader Clarence Thomas in the spring of 1992, when he was newly on the Court. As Gorsuch observed, one of the reassuring things about the Court is how little it changes. “I actually think if you brought the Founders back today and said, ‘Walk around the executive branch, walk around Congress, now come over here to the Court’ . . . I think the one institution they’d probably recognize most easily is this institution.” One change for the better was that the work covering the building’s façade that was ongoing when I was there to interview Justice Amy Coney Barrett in October has now been completed, so the plaza in front now has its famous backdrop back.
The smartly illustrated book — Gorsuch spoke with visible pride at its artwork by Chris Ellison — hits stores and websites Tuesday, May 5, and includes a poster of the declaration. It was co-written with Janie Nitze, his former law clerk and also co-author of his previous book on our over-regulated society, Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law. Gorsuch credits Nitze, as the mother of three young children who started her own preschool, for prodding him to stop complaining about the lack of education and “do something about it.”
The story is punctuated with asides about various figures of the revolution. Much as they did in Over Ruled, Gorsuch and Nitze aim to dramatize their point with individual stories. As Gorsuch told me, he’s not aiming only at the kids in the audience: “I hope parents will enjoy this and learn a few things along the way that they didn’t know about the Declaration of Independence and the signers. I think C. S. Lewis said . . . it’s a pretty crummy children’s book if the parents don’t enjoy it too.”
You can watch the interview below and read the full transcript of it here.
