Clarence Thomas says Constitution is common bedrock in divided America

clarence thomas told a judicial conference near Miami that the U.S. Constitution protects free speech and serves as shared ground in a divided country. He urged Americans to mark the 250th anniversary of independence by standing up for deeply held beliefs.

Thomas said, “We can disagree on all sorts of things, but we’ve got to have something in common or we don’t have a country.” He also said, “These documents, our founding documents, our founding history, whether we think it’s perfect or it shouldn’t be amended, or we might disagree about how far it goes, but we can say this is something that we all treasure.”

Near Miami remarks

The justice made the remarks at a judicial conference near Miami in response to an interview with his former Supreme Court clerk, Kasdin Mitchell, who was nominated this month by President Donald Trump to serve on the federal bench in Dallas. Thomas framed the Constitution as a point of common reference at a moment when he said society is divided.

He said his long tenure had given him a perspective on the cynicism that pervades so much of society and contributes to Americans’ distrust in government. Thomas also said, “Justice Marshall said you take a job for life, you do it for life,” referring to Thurgood Marshall.

Thomas and Thurgood Marshall

Thomas, 77, recently became the second longest-serving justice in Supreme Court history. He replaced Thurgood Marshall on the high court, and he said his view of the country has also been shaped by family history, including his grandfather, who was the son of a freed slave and had barely any formal education.

During the remarks, Thomas said his grandfather believed in America’s promise of a more perfect union. He also said Americans were taught from the cradle that they were equal in God’s eyes.

Founding figures

Thomas cited Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, and Abraham Lincoln as figures who spoke in terms of transcendent rights beyond the ability of man to take away. He said, “One of the rods in this society versus so many of the others where the rights are parceled down by a government is that we were taught from the cradle that we were equal in God’s eyes, that was self-evident,”

He gave no indication that he is looking to retire anytime soon. For readers tracking the court, the practical signal is that Thomas is still speaking as an active justice, and he is using public appearances to press a view of the Constitution as a shared civic anchor rather than a source of division.