Appendix B
On Precedent, Error, and Constitutional Correction​
The Constitution of the United States is law. Judicial opinions are interpretations of that law. The two are not identical, and the latter does not displace the former.
Throughout American history, courts -- including the highest court of the land -- have at times departed from the Constitution’s text, structure, or original meaning. Some decisions have mistaken policy preferences for legal mandates; others have elevated expedience over principle, or interpretation over authority. That such errors have occurred is not controversial. That they have been corrected is an established feature of our constitutional tradition.
The doctrine of precedent serves important purposes: stability, predictability, and continuity. But precedent was never intended to transform judicial error into permanent authority, nor to substitute judicial will for constitutional meaning. Stare decisis is a rule of prudence, not a command of submission. It counsels respect for past decisions; it does not demand obedience to demonstrable mistakes.
The Constitution itself contains no doctrine of judicial infallibility. It vests the judicial power to decide cases and controversies -- not to amend the charter by accretion, nor to bind The People indefinitely to interpretations untethered from the document they ratified. The ultimate sovereign remains The People, who retain the authority to reform their government and correct its course through lawful and constitutional means.
History confirms this understanding. Decisions once regarded as settled have been repudiated when they proved inconsistent with constitutional principle. Error did not become truth by repetition; rather, correction restored legitimacy. In such moments, fidelity to the Constitution required the courage to say plainly: this was wrong, and it must be fixed.
Accordingly, the existence of adverse precedent does not foreclose reform. Nor does reliance on erroneous decisions convert them into rightful authority. Where doctrine has drifted from constitutional foundations -- where interpretation has hardened into governance -- the remedy is not resignation, but restoration.
This declaration does not call for disregard of law, nor for defiance of judicial judgments. It calls for clarity: that the Constitution is prior to precedent, that interpretation is subordinate to meaning, and that self-government requires the capacity to correct even long-standing error when it has become destructive of the ends for which government is instituted.
To say that a court has erred is not to attack the rule of law. It is to affirm it.
To say that error must be corrected is not instability -- it is constitutional maintenance. And to insist that unelected judges, while essential to the rule of law, are not the sovereign is not radicalism, but republicanism.
The American constitutional order was designed to endure not because it is immune to mistake, but because it contains within itself the means of lawful correction. That capacity has not been exhausted. It remains the responsibility of a free people to use it.