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Happy Birthday U.S.
Author: BobR    Date: 09/17/2010 10:30:44

It was 223 years ago today that the framework for our government was completed. The war with the British had been fought and won. It had been 11 long years since independence was declared and 12 months of debates and rewrites. It would be almost 6 more months (March 4, 1789) before it was ratified by all the colonies and made official. Happy Birthday to our Constitution (the final draft).

In retrospect, we were fortunate to have such wise and scholarly men writing this document. We are still a young country, when one compares it to others around the world. They had the benefit of history to use as a guide as to what worked and what didn't. They had the advantage of starting with a clean slate (or parchment, as the case may be).

They understood that men and country and situations would change, so they designed mechanisms to allow for creating and changing laws, and adding updates to the Constitution itself. Twenty years later, Thomas Jefferson wisely wrote:
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

There are rumblings today of "returning to the Constitution", which is to imply that we have strayed far from its origins. That would seem to fly in the face of the intentions of its creators, who understood that change is inevitable, and so ensured that it was possible, within the parameters and safeguards included. The three-legged stool stands and does not wobble, regardless if one leg becomes longer or shorter. Thus it is with our trifurcated government.

It was two years after ratification that the Bill of Rights was added. Over the next 221 years another 17 amendments have been added (2 that essentially cancel each other out). These amendments have increased (or - more accurately - recognized and ensured) the rights of this country's citizens, and made changes to governmental procedure. Thousands of laws have been created, amended, revoked, and declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. For those that wish to "return to the Constitution", it begs the question: which version? For an amendment is a change to the Constitution; the "original" one we recognize (with the Bill of Rights added 2 years later) is really rev 1.1...

With that in mind, it also begs the question: which amendments are you willing to get rid of? As one tries to roll time backward, the amendments are slowly removed... There's the one that makes slavery illegal... the one that grants women the right to vote... You can't go back very far before you undo rights that everyone takes for granted nowadays. At one time, such complacency was not so. At one time, these too were radical changes.

So as we pause to celebrate another year of living in a country crafted on a single sheaf of paper, let's remember that nothing is static, and time only moves forward. As our society becomes more enlightened, so must the law of the land.

Happy Birthday U.S. Constitution...

 

41 comments (Latest Comment: 09/17/2010 22:57:03 by Scoopster)
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