Wisdom Once Must be Wisdom Still, if Our Nation is to Prosper

   George Washington suggested that, having the advantage of experience, we should make alterations in the Constitution. "I do not think we are more inspired, have more wisdom, or possess more virtue, than those who will come after us," he added.
   Wisdom once must be wisdom still, if our nation is to prosper. The father of our nation had more faith in us than we do in ourselves, for we worry that if we start tinkering with the Constitution, too many things might go wrong.
    If the founders saw that the document would need to be changed -- if they suggested we be equal to the task -- then let us not cower from those things that should be done. 
    I also read that Washington said,  "The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government."
   This same Washington said that if corrections needed to be made, the amendment process would be the way to go about them. "But let there be no change by usurpation," he said, perhaps referring to times we make changes in government without first changing the Constitution.  "For though this," he said, "in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."
   I think of how we have rulings on abortion -- and yet abortion is not even mentioned in the Constitution. I think of how we take guns from convicts while at the same time insisting government not infringe on gun rights.  I think of how we restrict the freedom of immigrants even though the Constitution spells out no such authority. We simply say it is necessary and expedient, and that a nation without borders isn't a nation, and therefore we restrict immigrants from coming. Are we "usurping" our authority? Is this the pattern by which governments are destroyed?
   I will repeat, the founding fathers saw that we would need to be equal to the task of self-government, of making changes to the Constitution. They placed in the Constitution a way to go about these changes, and they probably expected we would take advantage of the system they created.
   Maybe, after more than 200 years without a convention of states, we should not be so fearful of having one, but rather we should be troubled that we haven't had one.