Thursday, September 17, 2015

"For Constitution Day, take stock of the grand experiment"


"Sept. 17 marks Constitution Day. In Philadlephia, 228 years ago, George Washington and his fellow delegates subscribed their names to a copy of the proposed constitution. They hoped the states would call conventions to consider the document and that at least nine would ratify it and summon into existence what they described in the preamble as “a more perfect Union,” which would “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty” to themselves and their “Posterity.”

"As this language suggests, nearly all of those who had attended the federal convention had high hopes. None, however, were certain that the proposed constitution would suffice. They were, they knew, engaged in an experiment."

Please read more at the link

8 comments:

bagoh20 said...

Amazing accomplishment of vision, compromise, courage, and trust. The unprecedented choice to not seize power personally in that vacuum was exceptional. It seems to me that most of our national problems are a result of our venturing away from the vision of that document that seems to have been written by clairvoyants.

AllenS said...

One thing that they forgot to address is what to do when an idiot is elected President.

Jim in St Louis said...

bagoh20 I might question your use of the word 'trust'. Seems to me that there was a lot of distrust going on in the thought process of the founders. The people did not trust the government, the government did not trust the people having too much mob power, the states did not trust the federalists etc.

I think your right in that people who think that it doesn't matter that congress no longer declares war, or that the president just decides which laws to enforce have caused some serious problems.

ricpic said...

"...there was a lot of distrust going on in the thought process of the founders."

Agreed. The Constitution, with its relative lack of high blown phrases and its mechanisms for making high handed governance as difficult as possible, shows a clear apprehension about human nature, the founders' nature included.

But of course, careful as the Constitution is in its safeguards against both the accrual of power and the flagrant abuse of power, without the courage to resist a lawless chief executive it availeth not.

bagoh20 said...

I totally agree, Jim. When I say trust, I'm thinking of the founders in a position where they could have vested power in themselves or people like them, as has always been the natural tendency, often out of mistrust of the common people, instead decided to trust the people with most of the power. They did however wisely install it with the control rods of the republican representational form.

Did they do that out of high-minded respect for the people or out of mistrust of each other and the fear that one or more of their peers would end up ruling?

Methadras said...

What is so funny about all of this, is that the founder predicted much of what we see today with respect to government growth of power, government overreach, cronyism, and overreach and how much of what the founders placed in the constitution could be or would be largely ignored.

In effect, they said, hey guys, we gave you a republic, let's see if you can keep it.

Amartel said...

"One thing that they forgot to address is what to do when an idiot is elected President."
Would add "by his fanbois and grllz in the media." That's everything and the Reps did not realize it until way too late. The media is the all-powerful, rarely accountable or transparent, and never acknowledged fourth branch of the government. The Publicity Branch. They raised this fool up and have propped him up ever since so he barely even has to pretend to care about the constitution, the rules of government he swore to uphold. Repeated domestic and international catastrophes, open corruption and cronyism, brazen disregard for fairness and equity, all on Obama's Watch and crickets or diversion of blame from the media.
If a Republican gets elected, start by revoking the Hollywood tax cuts and all the other bennies they've grifted off Big Government for serving as Publicity Branch.

Jim in St Louis said...

Remedies?

I don't see many elected officials who would return us to constitutional boundaries. I'm also leery of a amendment convention although I'm intrigued if 'the people' could actually pull it off and pass oh, say a balanced budget amendment. (But that would just be my hobby-horse) Can you imagine if there actually was a convention of the states to propose amendments? What a circus of special interests that would be!