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The American Constitution Society of the University of Georgia School of Law is a nonpartisan society whose mission is to harness the values of compassion and respect for each individual, and to incorporate them into American law and politics, in order to build a stronger and more decent national community. The Society's role is to influence the debate on the law, both in its interpretation and its creation, and to restore these traditional American values to their rightful place in legal and political debate. Our goal is a rekindling of the hope that by reason and decency, we can create an America that is better for us all.

We believe that the law, and, in particular, the Constitution, serves human values. We believe that the Constitution is a charter of liberty, the blueprint for a noble and unique experiment designed to prevent any excesses of power that do not protect the human dignity necessary for individuals to realize the full potential of their lives. The goal of the Constitution, and the United States it created, is to permit people to succeed in the "pursuit of happiness," one of the inalienable rights this nation explicitly was founded to secure to the American people.

We believe that the Constitution, and by extension, many other areas of American law, can be understood only by reference to transcendent principles of decency, reason, humanity and compassion. We believe that those who enforce the law must have greater concern for the way in which it affects the lives of the people who make up the nation in which we live. And we believe these principles should form a starting point for enactment, as well as interpretation, of the law.

We believe deeply in the importance of law as the mechanism which governs the relationships between and among the individuals and institutions that form our society, and we recognize the direct relationship between legal theory and the broader political debate about the kind of society in which we live.

"Content contained on this website may not reflect the views or opinions of the University of Georgia or the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia.