It has been called the most perfect document ever constructed by human beings. Now well into its third century, the US Constitution continues to affect the way we make laws, the way we enforce them, and the way we interact with each other.
As it was originally written, this Document served no self-seeking opportunist, nor did it impose itself on the people who adopted it. More than anything else, it limited its own power, allowing just enough to keep a nation unified and strong, but wisely giving back authority to the descendants of the wise men who wrote it.
The past two centuries have seen an erosion of the Constitution's influence and power. Some laws and legal actions have directly opposed the basic fundamentals of our National Document, and misguided judges and courts have sought to impose their narrow, contemporary views on it. There has been much mutilation of the original intent of the principles of the Constitution, and the judicial branch of government has failed miserably in its appointed duty of protection; indeed, one of our Supreme Court justices, in the late 1980's called it a "flawed document," and derided it for outdated values and inherent weaknesses -- this a man who would not have had his position had he not previously sworn to "uphold and defend" the very document he now condemned.
But perhaps the greatest travesty of all has been something that the fathers allowed to be done to the Document: the process of amendment. It is my premise in this blog to show that most of the amendments have done further damage to the document; in fact, some have gone directly against the intentions of the Framers. Beyond the first ten amendments, I could even argue that we could have gotten by splendidly without any further amendments, though some are benign of themselves. Every attempt to amend the Constitution of the United States has opened a door to mutilation and misinterpretation; even some of the original ten amendments have been used to twist the meaning of the Document and the original intent of the Framers. Even today, hardly any ruling is made without referring to an amendment, and several of the first ten are still misunderstood and misused.
The purpose of this blog is to bring some of this to light through lessons of history and observations of external pressures that forced the Founding Document into a mold that it was never meant to enter. I welcome any further discussion on each of these blogs.
