Over the last two decades, a fringe plan to call a convention under the Constitution's amendment mechanism—the nation's first ever—has inched through statehouses. Delegates, like those in Philadelphia two centuries ago, would exercise nearly unlimited authority to draft changes to our fundamental law, potentially altering anything from voting and free speech to regulatory and foreign policy powers. Such a watershed moment would present great danger, and for some, great power.

Russ Feingold and Peter Prindiville examine the nature of such constitutional changes in modern life and ask the urgent question about what American democracy is—and should be.