{"id":764231,"date":"2026-04-30T19:00:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T19:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/764231\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T19:00:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T19:00:25","slug":"lessons-from-the-founders-ny-constitutional-scholars-judges-say-path-through-political-division-lies-in-nations-spirit-of-compromise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/764231\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the founders: NY Constitutional scholars, judges say path through political division lies in nation\u2019s spirit of compromise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking back to lessons of compromise from the founding fathers might just be what lets us move forward through our current political division, a trio of constitutional scholars told New York judges and attorneys who filled the Appellate Division, First Department<\/a> courtroom Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Feerick<\/a>, who helped architect the 25th Amendment<\/a>, said remembering that the country wouldn\u2019t exist if the founders hadn\u2019t put aside their differences provides a great deal of perspective on the present moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe [must] stay at the table, listen across differences, trust the framework enough to do the slow and perfect work of compromise,\u201d said Feerick, a professor and dean emeritus at Fordham Law School. \u201cThis is how we shape a better future for all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Judges and attorneys listen to a conversation on the history of the Constitution and future of compromise led by legal scholars.<\/p>\n

In conversation with Georgetown Law Dean Emeritus William Treanor<\/a> and Fordham Law Senior Fellow John Rogan<\/a>, Feerick told the courtroom of judges that today\u2019s political divisions aren\u2019t so different from those between the founding fathers. The men who wrote the Constitution were much more complex and diverse than people usually realize, he said, pointing to vast social, economic, and occupational differences between the men.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were not distant figures from history, but shaped by different circumstances, experiences and beliefs, who brought both their strengths and their imperfections to the task of building a new nation,\u201d Feerick said. \u201cWhat is most remarkable is not simply that these differences existed, but how they were addressed through a commitment to remain at the table so as to listen and to find, however and perfectly, a way forward together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Denny Chin and Kathy Hirata Chin, a former partner at Crowell & Moring.<\/p>\n

For example, Feerick said, Benjamin Franklin acknowledged there were parts of the Constitution he didn\u2019t agree with, but took it upon himself to persuade holdouts to sign the document.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving lived long, he had learned to doubt his own judgment and to pay more respect to the judgment of others,\u201d Feerick said. \u201cHe urged every member who still had objections to the Constitution to doubt a little of his own infallibility and to put their name to the document. It is perhaps one of the most eloquent statements of compromise in American history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Appellate Division, First Department Presiding Justice Dianne Renwick sits with former Fordham Law School Dean Matthew Diller and other colleagues.<\/p>\n

Valuing compromise does not mean not voicing objection, Feerick emphasized. He said the objections voiced by delegates who temporarily put their differences aside to sign the document were what spurred the later movement to draft the Bill of Rights and continued pushes against slavery.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dianne T. Renwick, Presiding Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, speaks at Tuesday\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the clearest illustration that the lessons of the past aren\u2019t so far away from today was the fact that the scholars could pull lessons from Feerick\u2019s work on the 25th Amendment right in front of his eyes.<\/p>\n

Rogan said that, to him, the 25th Amendment \u2014 drawn up in the wake of President John F. Kennedy\u2019s assassination in 1963 \u2014 teaches that those seeking to make change should \u201cseize the moment,\u201d but also look beyond it and think about what else they can accomplish with a moment\u2019s momentum.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Former Appellate Division, First Department Associate Justice Angela Mazzarelli sits with other current and former justices and attorneys.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was realized that if President Kennedy hadn\u2019t been killed, let\u2019s say, he had been left in a coma, there would have been no legal procedure to transfer power to the next official in line of succession,\u201d Rogan said. \u201cThat\u2019s what led Congress to do something about that flaw in the Constitution. But the amendment\u2019s framers, very wisely, didn\u2019t frame their solution narrowly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond simply creating procedures for declaring a president unable to serve, it also developed a significantly more comprehensive process for filling vacancies in the vice presidency and for voluntary and involuntary transfers of power. The urgency of the moment allowed for a compromise that filled an immediate need and provided for the necessary momentum to sketch out more extensive procedures for the stability of the executive branch.<\/p>\n

\"\"Attendees speak in the First Department courtroom before the talk begins.<\/p>\n

Dianne Renwick, presiding justice of the Appellate Division First Department, said she was leaving the conversation with a greater understanding of compromise\u2019s role in the rule of law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe takeaway, for me, is that collaboration and respectful dialogue can perhaps shape the rule of law and preserve and protect our American dream,\u201d Renwick said at the event\u2019s conclusion. \u201cPerhaps we can all take that with us.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Looking back to lessons of compromise from the founding fathers might just be what lets us move forward…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":764232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,313198,32328,356,3228,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,313879,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-764231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-appellate-division-first-department","tag-constitution","tag-courts","tag-law","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-political-divison","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116495203193140278","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}