Does the Constitution create a sovereign nation, a league of sovereign states, or something in between? The contest over the "nature of the Union" was at the forefront of American constitutional debate from the Founding through Reconstruction. In this lecture, Professor Campbell will survey the competing historical positions, trace their connection to earlier fights over the status of the American colonies within the British empire, and highlight the continued relevance of this question to modern constitutional interpretation.

Jud Campbell is a professor of law and the Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School, specializing in constitutional history and First Amendment law. He has taught at the University of Richmond, Harvard, NYU, and the University of Chicago, and recently won the Federalist Society's Joseph Story Award. After clerking for Judges Diane Sykes (7th Cir.) and José Cabranes (2nd Cir.), he led the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. He holds degrees from UNC Chapel Hill and the London School of Economics, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.