The Year of Living Constitutionally: a man, a political plan … and a musket

Would you fly the Jolly Roger for Uncle Sam? AJ Jacobs tried to. For 12 months, the author and journalist became what he calls “the original originalist”, seeking to live the way the founders envisioned life under the US constitution.

That life included the right to piracy on behalf of the US government. It sprang from a tradition predating the constitution, when the Continental Congress granted letters of marque and reprisal, allowing seamen to capture British ships. Noting this precedent, Jacobs brought an unconventional offer to Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California, when the two met in a hotel lobby.

“I said, ‘I’m following the constitution and would like to be granted a letter of marque and reprisal,’” Jacobs recalls. “He said, ‘Great, let’s make it happen.’ I explained to him what it was: basically legalized piracy. I would fight our enemies on my friend’s water-ski boat.”

After that, Khanna “was a little more like, ‘Maybe this is not going to happen.’”

Jacobs didn’t get his Captain Jack Sparrow moment. But he did get a book out of the experience, The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution’s Original Meaning, which has received multiple votes of approval – including from Khanna.

“He did like the idea of the book: trying to explain the origins of the constitution, what it really means, what it says.”

In 2007, Jacobs published the results of a similar project, The Year of Living Biblically.

“They have a similar status in our society,” he says, of the Bible and the constitution. “Some people see them as sacred and try to follow them in the original meaning as it was written.”

Others look to adapt the texts for a modern era. For the constitution, this has evolved into a