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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas urged Americans to mark the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence by standing for their deeply held beliefs and treating the Constitution as a common foundation, even as he pointed to sharp divisions in society. Speaking at a judicial conference near Miami on May 14, Thomas said the country depends on shared principles more than agreement on every issue.
Thomas said Americans can disagree “on all sorts of things,” but that they still must have “something in common or we don’t have a country.” He described the founding documents and founding history as something Americans can treasure even if they dispute how perfect those documents are or whether they should be amended.
In his remarks, Thomas described the Constitution as protecting free speech and said it serves as a bedrock in a society he characterized as otherwise marked by deep divisions. He also connected the message to his judicial outlook, saying he was drawing on lessons from his upbringing in the segregated South and on his experience over more than three decades on the Supreme Court.
Thomas said he sees a “limited form of government” tied to the example he learned from his grandfather, the son of a freed slave who had little formal education but still believed in the country’s promise of “a more perfect union.” He said that belief helped shape his understanding of rights as something more fundamental than what a government can confer or restrict.
Thomas also said that cynicism he associates with broader society contributes to Americans’ distrust in government, and he framed his long tenure as giving him perspective on that distrust. He said his views reflect that context while pointing to the founding generation’s language about rights.
Thomas referred to a statement often attributed to Justice Thurgood Marshall—who he succeeded on the Supreme Court—about taking a job “for life” and doing it “for life,” and he did not indicate that he plans to retire. The remarks came shortly after President Donald Trump nominated Kasdin Mitchell, a former Supreme Court clerk, to serve on the federal bench in Dallas.
Thomas’ discussion of rights included references to historical civil rights and national leaders, saying Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln “all speak in terms of these transcendent rights beyond the ability of man to take away.” He said those rights were taught to him from early life as self-evident, and he contrasted them with the idea that government has the ultimate power over what people are owed.