Friday, July 4, 2014

The (Im)Perfectness of the Constitution

   Could we dare say the Constitution isn't a perfect document?
   Was it closer to being perfect before amendments started changing it, shifting it from what the Founding Fathers gave us?
  Or, was it actually even more imperfect then than it is now, what with the original document counting slaves each as only three-fifths of a person, and not giving women the right to vote at all.
  "Defective" is the word Supreme Court Justice John Marshall had for the original Constitution. That may seem a little strong, but read his whole quote. Marshall believed in the Constitution as a living document, one that needed to be and was improved on.
  "I do not believe the meaning of the Constitution was forever 'fixed' at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound," Marshall said. "To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights we hold as fundamental today."
   If we could ask George Washington if the document was perfect, what would he say? Actually, he did leave us his thought on the matter. "The warmest friends and the best supports the constitution has," he wrote, "do not contend that is is free from imperfections; but they found them unavoidable, and are sensible, if evil is likely to arise therefrom, the remedy must come hereafter; for in the present moment it is not to be obtained; and, as there is a constitutional door open for it, I think the people (for it is with them to judge), can, as they will have the advantage of experience on their side, decide with as much propriety on the alterations and amendments which are necessary, as ourselves."

(NOTE ADDED 8/6/17: The Constitution does not prohibit women from voting, it just doesn't specify that they can. While this old blog's headline suggests the Constitution is imperfect, I am wondering now if it is, indeed, perfect, or close to it.)

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