Dear Reader, 

The Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy is proud to present the first issue of Volume 21. This issue contains a selection of articles and notes and a se-ries of papers presented at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution’s Eighth Annual Salmon P. Chase Distinguished Lecture & Faculty Colloquium. 

The Salmon P. Chase Lecture series is published in partnership with the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. The Center and its Director, Randy Barnett, remain close friends of our journal. The 2021 lecture and colloquium, published here, commemorate the Constitutional contributions of Gouverneur Morris, a Founder worth more study than he has been given. By publishing this colloquium, we hope to help close this scholarly gap. 

The issue begins with an introductory lecture by Georgetown Law’s Dean William Treanor, followed by articles from Professor Jackson Barlow, Richard Brookhiser, Professor Jonathan Gienapp, and Melanie Randolph Miller. Each author examines a small part of Gouverneur Morris’s role in the Founding, bring-ing to light the scrivener’s subtle influences on our political system. Dean Treanor, for example, examines Morris’s changes to the final draft of the Constitution while on the Committee of Style. Professor Barlow focuses on his work to fight against the evil of slavery from the very beginning. 

Elsewhere in the issue are articles and notes from an esteemed group of academics. Professor Kurt Lash identifies the original meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment and concludes that it leaves no room to justify Roe v. Wade. Ambassador C. Boyden Gray pens a practical vision for the future of American energy policy, explaining how fossil fuels and lower emissions are not mutually exclusive. In the final article, Amy Parrish and three of her col-leagues explore the future of compulsory collective bargaining since Janus v. AFSCME. 

Our three notes likewise are courageous efforts to defend the Constitution. Writing from experience as a retired police officer, Elliott Averett encourages a broader qualified immunity to respond to increased crime throughout the country. Braden Anderson discusses the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s constitutionality given an inferior–principal officer problem within the bu-reau. Finally, the University of Texas Law School’s Reuben Blum examines the original meaning of the Declare War clause. Blum’s article is the latest publication from the Tri-Journal Notes Exchange, a partnership between our journal, the Texas Review of Law and Politics, and the New York University Journal of Law and Liberty. 

If a law journal is worth citing, it will be meaningful. If it is worth reading, it will be entertaining. If it is worth publishing, it will be challenging. By holding fast to our mission and keeping our pages open to legal academia heterodoxy, I believe the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy is all three. This Volume, and this Issue especially, is no exception. 

Philip H. DeVoe 

Editor-in-Chief, Volume 21 

Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy