“Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” Ecclesiasticus 44:1
Thirty nine of the original 55 founding fathers assembled in Philadelphia to sign the newly created Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787; some had left in disgust and some would strongly oppose its ratification by the states. Still, we remember that day every 17 th of September as the creation of what British Prime Minister Gladstone called “[T]he most wonderful work ever struck off at a time by the brain and purpose of man.” James Madison marveled that the Constitution existed at all, given the divisiveness of the constitutional convention's arguments, and saw the hand of God in it.
It was the work of quite young men, averaging 43 years of age and of a common culture, according to scholar Walter Berns. Subtract several of the superannuated delegates such as Benjamin Franklin and the average would have been lower yet.
America's charter was that rarest of documents: one that recognized that people's rights existed prior to and independently of government. It's also a work that requires a virtuous people, or as John Adams put it, “Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Therein lies the rub.
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Nelson: A 'living Constitution' means no Constitution at all
The Constitution has become a shell of itself. Once a document delineating “few and enumerated” powers for the federal government, it now maintains its form while its content has radically changed. Most of what the federal government does now is palpably unconstitutional, from typical income-transfer programs to warmongering across the earth. (How many Americans would we wish to die to defend Latvia, how many Syrians do we have to starve because we have a temper tantrum about Iran?)
Berns notes that the American people view the Constitution with a mixture of reverence and ignorance. That's why Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., mocked the reporter who asked her if Obamacare was constitutional and yet she has the gall to assert that President Trump acts unconstitutionally. She's trying to play off our respect for the founders and our ignorance. If hypocrisy were explosive Pelosi could level a city.
She's not alone. Reflecting a host of modern thinkers Supreme Court Justice William Brennan claimed the Constitution wasn't stuck with the dead hand of the past but was adaptable to “current trends.” In short, it's a living document whose content can be molded any way the zeitgeist demands. Contrast this hatred for the past with Supreme Court Chief Justice Marshall's statement that the Constitution's principles are “permanent” and “unchangeable” except by amendment, or Madison's nod that “...I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted...In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.”
There essentially is no strict or loose interpretation of the Constitution, only a search for its meaning as it was understood at the time of its ratification. Anything more than this is to turn it into a piece of clay to be molded by whomever is in power. That way lies tyranny.
