Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas urges unity around the Constitution
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas addressed a judicial conference near Miami, urging Americans to mark the United States’ 250th Independence anniversary by reaffirming the Constitution’s role as a shared foundation. He 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,” and highlighted free‑speech protections as a unifying principle.
Thomas reflected on his upbringing in the segregated South, his three‑decade tenure on the high court, and the legacy of figures such as Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln. He noted the recent nomination of his former clerk Kasdin Mitchell by former President Donald Trump to a federal judgeship in Dallas, and dismissed any hint of retirement, noting his status as the second‑longest‑serving Justice.
He invoked Justice Thurgood Marshall’s maxim about lifelong service and emphasized the “transcendent rights” embedded in the nation’s founding documents, urging citizens to celebrate not with fireworks alone but with a renewed commitment to constitutional principles.