Scholars use the Latin phrase “locus amoenus” — meaning pleasant place — to describe spaces of peace and regeneration in great works of literature.
Beautiful and bucolic, these places tend not to be city cemeteries.
But when in law school, one can’t be too picky. And so, while studying at Yale, I adopted the Grove Street Cemetery as my personal “locus amoenus.” Situated a literal stone’s throw from the Sterling Law Building on Yale’s campus, I could stroll across the street to steal a few moments of peace and clarity while walking among the final resting places of so many American luminaries.
On these walks, I stumbled upon the gravesites of, among others, Noah Webster, of Webster dictionary fame; Walter Camp, the “father” of American football; and Nathaniel Smith, the co-founder of Yale and Dartmouth medical schools and the surgeon who saved a young Joseph Smith Jr.’s leg from amputation. On one particularly memorable fall day, I came across the tomb of Roger Sherman, known as the only one to have signed all four of the nation’s founding documents.
As I learned more about Sherman — who was the second oldest delegate to the Constitutional Convention behind Benjamin Franklin — I came to believe he deserves to be known for more than signing important historical documents. What Sherman gave the country is something former federal Judge Thomas B. Griffith discusses in this special Constitution issue of Deseret Magazine: a model for “how to get along with people with whom we disagree.”
Indeed, before there ever was a Constitution, there was a constitutional crisis. The convention was at a deadlock in the summer of 1787 over representation in the legislative branch. The big states wanted representation based on population (the Virginia Plan), and the small states sought equal representation (the New Jersey Plan). Sherman proposed a compromise where the bicameral legislation would have equal representation in one chamber, the Senate, and proportional representation in the other chamber, the House of Representatives.
The secret of the Constitution, Griffith argues, is that it forces us to learn to get along with those with whom we disagree and find solutions that work for the good of the union. And, as Justin Collings, a noted constitutional scholar at Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute, writes in this month’s commentary, the twin trends of partisan polarization and constitutional illiteracy are “intimately related.” He continues: “As knowledge about the Constitution ebbs, so does allegiance to it. And because the Constitution was designed in significant part to keep partisan passions at bay, constitutional drift fuels partisan enmity. The future health of our constitutional republic requires that we increase our own knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and do more to transmit such knowledge to the rising generation.”
This issue also features thought-provoking essays by Manhattan Institute’s Ilya Shapiro, Harvard Law School’s Noah Feldman, and Brigham Young University’s Bradley Rebeiro, among others.
This, then, is the chief aim of Deseret Magazine’s annual issue dedicated to the U.S. Constitution: fostering a greater understanding and appreciation for the blessings of the Constitution and the unique challenges the founding document faces in our time. For many years, the editorial pages of the Deseret News printed the following epigraph. It’s a statement that I believe would have pleased the devoutly religious and profoundly patriotic Roger Sherman: “We stand for the Constitution of the United States as having been divinely inspired.”
This story appears in the July/August 2025 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.