During Reconstruction, a campaign to overthrow South Carolina's government sparked a constitutional

crisis that tested the limits of democracy in the post-Civil War South. This week on C-SPAN's

lectures and history podcast, University of North Carolina professor Marcus Gadsden, explains how

constitutional order emerged from the chaos and what this

moment reveals about the fragility and resilience of American government. More after this.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome. Thank you so much for coming. I'm Marcus Gadsden. I teach

constitutional law and civil procedure here at

UNC. And I want to begin by thanking everybody for coming. There's a lot of things you could be doing with your time and the fact that you want to celebrate our Constitution and our constitutional order, I think, says a lot about you. And so I'm glad that you are here.

And I feel privileged that I get to share some reflections with you on this day to celebrate

our Constitution.

When many of us think about our Constitution, our minds invariably turned to Philadelphia in 1787.

We think about George Washington presiding silently while intellectual giants debated how to select

the President of the United States.

Or we imagine Benjamin Franklin coming up at the end of the convention and making a moving

plea to the delegates to please sign the final document, even if they had some doubts about it,

because they needed to stand together and send a message of unity to the American people.

Or we think about Benjamin Franklin leaving that convention and being confronted by a citizen

and asked, what kind of government have you given us and responding a republic, if only you can keep it?

That is an inspiring part of our constitutional story, and it's one that deserves all of your gratitude,

and yet it is not the story I'm here to talk about today.

I'm here to talk about a story of constitutional crisis.

I'm here to tell you about the times where constitution making has torn us apart instead of brought us together. About the times where the people who drafted our constitutions appealed to our basest instincts instead of our better angels.

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