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Essay: Is the US Constitution still relevant today?

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The Constitution of the United States was written in 1878, a far cry away from the modern world of 2018. The Founding Fathers weighed actions to consequences and made decisions that would appeal to King George III of England and the men of the colonies. — It was was not created with the recognition that the world may change drastically over the centuries, and therefore was made difficult to change to keep up with the times. The document’s old-fashioned traditions age poorly and fit imperfectly to mend today’s issues, so it is left to the people to try to render it to their lives as they can. The Constitution is a document that has not dealt with issues presented at the time of its making and neither does it deal with current issues, and therefore is not relevant to today’s day and age. With all the effort put into writing the document, the Founding Fathers did not successfully write the Constitution to deal with problems as well as they hoped it would. The design of the Senate worked well at first, but has since then made smaller states inflate to compensate for their populations and be an unfair reflection of the people’s votes. Not to mention how the Electoral College is a faulty system to elect the President fairly – as remarked by George C. Edwards, it “violates political equality” (192). The men elected often do not protect the interests of the people they represent fairly, as it is their opinions that influence the vote, and often unfairly. The writers should also have created stricter rules for the men in leadership, instead allowing them to establish their own salaries and benefits, unbeknown and untouchable by the people they are supposed to serve. As a result, there are many gray areas in the Constitution that have the ability to be manipulated by the men that hold positions of power, as which often happens. Over the last two hundred years, the Constitution has not adapted gracefully to the issues of present times. For one, it has been made to be hard to amend to retain its perfection as seen in the eyes of the writers. Article V outlines the requirements of passing amendments, and it is the demand that two thirds of both Houses of Congress agree to propose it and then for ¾ of the states to agree on it. With that in mind, the amendments that have been added to the Constitution did not change the way the federal government functions. The Bill of Rights, the Amendments created after the Civil War and the 19th Amendment allowing women to vote, as Mary Frances Berry notes, have only “remedied major defects in the original document.” Thus, it has failed to allow responsible lawmaking. When the majority of Amendments are just the bare bones to equality that the document supposedly established, there is a problem. The Constitution’s status as a sacred text has disallowed people to come forward and desire a change to make it easier on lawmakers to amend it to become a better document for the people. It has made America and its people live hundreds of years in unreasonable ways when better options exist. The most significant question today is if the Constitution’s relevancy still stands. In present day, people treat the Constitution differently – some are traditionalists, sticking to the text, others depend on the Judicial branch to translate it to modern times, and many cherry-pick what’s convenient for them and ignore the rest. Compared to the other 22 democratic countries in the world, America ranks embarrassingly low when judged by the ratio of the rich to poor, success of social expenditures, gender equality, and economic growth in the country (Dahl 117). The Constitution serves America and its people more poorly than they would like to admit, that it is failing them. The facts stand against the rosy belief of the document’s perfection – it was written with flaws, bound to being unchangeable and unbending. The buffer to America’s progress lies in its treasured Constitution, and its fault to be outside the ability to change. Given these points, the Constitution has failed the people of the United States to be the fair document it seems to be. The attempt to make states equal, the lack of effort to make voting equal, and the lack of clear rules and regulations for the people in power paints the document to be careless in important and abused details. The purposeful design of its difficulty to amend provides another fault, and that is the inability to change with the time and global situation to be able to deal with issues well. With those points in mind, the relevance of the Constitution drops as it becomes irrelevant and unuseful to the people of current times. The Constitution’s lack in care to vital details and difficulty to change to support modern issues makes it a document that’s relevancy has long expired.

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What If We Wrote the Constitution Today?

Proposals from libertarian, conservative, and progressive scholars displayed a few striking differences—but also some profound similarities.

An illustration of the Constitution with scribbles

As the world’s oldest written constitution, the U.S. Constitution has been remarkably resilient. For more than 230 years, it has provided the foundation for America’s economic prosperity, political stability, and democratic debate. But during the past two centuries, changes in politics, technology, and values have led many to assume that if Americans set out to write a new Constitution today, the document would be quite different. To find out what a new Constitution might look like, my colleagues and I at the National Constitution Center recently asked three teams of scholars—conservative, progressive, and libertarian— to draft new Constitutions for the United States of America in 2020 from scratch .

The results surprised us. As expected, each of the three teams highlights different values: The team of conservatives emphasizes Madisonian deliberation; the progressives, democracy and equality; and the libertarians, unsurprisingly, liberty. But when the groups delivered their Constitutions— which are published here —all three proposed to reform the current Constitution rather than abolish it.

From the October 2020 issue: The flawed genius of the Constitution

Even more unexpectedly, they converge in several of their proposed reforms, focusing on structural limitations on executive power rather than on creating new rights. All three teams agree on the need to limit presidential power, explicitly allow presidential impeachments for non-criminal behavior, and strengthen Congress’s oversight powers of the president. And, more specifically, the progressive and conservative teams converge on the need to elect the president by a national popular vote (the libertarians keep the Electoral College); to resurrect Congress’s ability to veto executive actions by majority vote; and to adopt 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices. The unexpected areas of agreement suggest that, underneath the country’s current political polarization, there may be deep, unappreciated consensus about constitutional principles and needed reforms.

The conservative team, composed of Robert P. George of Princeton, Michael W. McConnell of Stanford, Colleen A. Sheehan of Arizona State, and Ilan Wurman of Arizona State , focuses on structural reforms designed to improve the country’s political discourse . Many of their proposed changes, they write, “are designed to enable elected officials to break free of the grip of faction and once again to deliberate, with the aim of listening attentively to, as well as educating, public opinion, and promoting justice and the public good.” The changes they describe as most “radical” are reducing the size of the Senate to 50 members to encourage genuine deliberation, increasing senatorial terms to nine years and the presidential term to six years—both with no possibility of reelection—and (in a proposal the libertarian team also put forward) reintroducing senatorial appointment by state legislatures. In their view, these reforms would encourage elected officials to vote their conscience and focus on the common good rather than partisan interests.

The progressive team, composed of Caroline Fredrickson of Georgetown University, Jamal Greene of Columbia, and Melissa Murray of New York University , also finds much to admire and preserve in the original constitutional structure. “We wanted to make clear our own view that the Constitution, as drafted in 1787, is not completely incompatible with progressive constitutionalism,” they write. “Indeed, in our view, the original Constitution establishes a structure of divided government that is a necessary precondition for a constitutional democracy with robust protections for individual rights.” The goal, in their proposed changes, is to secure the blessings of liberty and equality promised by the Declaration of Independence, by doing more to strengthen the “structural protections for democratic government.” Rather than abolish the Senate, the progressive team would make it more representative, with one senator for each state and “one additional senator [for] every one-hundredth of the national population.” For example, California would have 13 senators, Texas would have seven, Florida nine, and 22 states (including Washington, D.C.) one. Senators would serve for one six-year term. The progressives would also decrease fundraising pressure on representatives by extending the House term from two to four years, and by making clear that the government has the power to set both spending and contribution limits in political campaigns. Their proposed Progressive Constitution would also codify judicial and legislative protections for reproductive rights and against discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, and childbirth.

The authors of the proposed Libertarian Constitution — Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute, Timothy Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute, and Christina Mulligan of Brooklyn Law School — emphasize their intent to clarify the original Constitution, not replace it. “At the outset,” they write, “we joked that all we needed to do was to add ‘and we mean it’ at the end of every clause.” Their particular focus is resurrecting limitations on the commerce clause. Since the New Deal era, the Supreme Court has interpreted the commerce clause to grant Congress essentially unlimited power to regulate anything that might have a tangential effect on interstate commerce. The libertarians would allow regulation only of actual interstate commerce, not of noncommercial activity that takes place within one state. They would also limit federal power in other ways, requiring all federal regulations to be related to powers enumerated in the Constitution and prohibiting the federal government from using its powers of the purse to influence state policies. Like the conservative team, the libertarians would return the selection of senators to the states, in the hope of promoting federalism. The libertarians also include a series of other restrictions on state and federal power to protect economic liberty, such as limiting the states from passing rent-control or price-control laws, prohibiting the states and the federal government from subsidizing corporations, providing for a rescission of national laws by a two-thirds vote of the states, and requiring a balanced federal budget.

Jeffrey Rosen: The fourth battle for the Constitution

Although all three Constitutions maintain a balance between state and federal power, the main differences among them concern how they strike that balance, with the libertarians imposing the greatest restrictions on federal power and the progressives the least. (In this respect, their debates resemble those of the original Framers in Philadelphia.) But, strikingly, all three Constitutions embrace structural reforms to ensure that the balance among presidential, congressional, and judicial power is closer to what the original Constitution envisioned, with all three branches checking each other, rather than an imperial president and judiciary checking a passive and polarized Congress.

Most notably, all three Constitutions seek significant limits on executive power. The three teams all clarify that the president’s power to execute the law is not a freestanding power to make laws: The conservatives emphasize that executive orders don’t have legal effect unless authorized by Congress; the libertarians underscore “that the power of the executive branch constitutes the power to ‘execute the laws’ and not some broader, freestanding power”; and the progressives propose that “Congress’s oversight authority over the executive branch must be made more explicit to ensure it can effectively police wrongdoing in program administration or otherwise.” To increase Congress’s oversight powers over the president, both the Conservative and Progressive Constitutions would resurrect the so-called legislative veto, which the Supreme Court struck down in 1982, allowing Congress to repudiate presidential regulations and executive orders by majority vote. For both teams, the resurrection of the legislative veto would allow Congress to take the lead in lawmaking, as the Framers intended.

Along the same lines, all three Constitutions would relax the standards for impeachment, making explicit that the president can be impeached for non-criminal offenses. At the same time, both the Conservative and Progressive Constitutions would require a three-fifths vote in the House, to reduce the risk of partisan impeachments. The conservatives also note that “it is generally improper for the President personally to direct prosecutions” and that “the President may not pardon himself or the Vice President.” The progressives include other reforms, such as requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate for the confirmation of the attorney general, “to ensure that the law enforcement power of the federal government is not abused for partisan gain.”

On the election of the president, the conservatives and progressives once again converge on nearly the same language, with both teams providing that the president shall “be elected by a national popular vote conducted using a ranked-choice voting method.” While agreeing that the Electoral College system for choosing among candidates is not democratic enough, the conservatives believe that the system for selecting candidates undervalues experience and character; therefore, they would abandon the presidential primary system, allowing presidential candidates to be selected by elected representatives at the state level. Resurrecting a proposal that was nearly adopted at the original Constitutional Convention, the conservatives would also limit presidents to a single six-year term, to encourage them to focus not on reelection but on the common good.

Finally, there is the Supreme Court. Once again, the conservative and progressive teams agree, this time on the need for 18-year term limits for justices. And the libertarians leave the question of Court terms open (their team’s leader, Ilya Shapiro, recently endorsed limits in his new book, Supreme Disorder ) , but they decide not to propose them, in the spirit of avoiding what they call purely “good government” reforms, without clear libertarian salience. This convergence suggests that if President-elect Joe Biden does, in fact, convene a commission to examine judicial reform, term limits for justices will be a proposal that has the potential for broad cross-partisan support.

Read: No other Western democracy allows this

It is on the subject of rights, rather than constitutional structures, that disagreements among the three teams really emerged. All three teams maintain and even strengthen most of the existing provisions of the Bill of Rights (the libertarians and progressives even update the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures for a digital age). However, each Constitution also adds provisions about rights that reflect the teams’ unique concerns. For example, the progressives try to increase democracy and reduce judicial power by providing that all rights are subject “to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” By contrast, the libertarians create the opposite presumption for courts to apply in evaluating claims about rights, emphasizing that whenever government infringes on the presumption of liberty, “courts shall determine whether that government has constitutional authority for its action and a genuine justification for its restriction or regulation.”

The three teams also strongly disagree about how to strike the balance between liberty and regulation when it comes to the First Amendment rights of speech and religion. All teams would include explicit protections for freedom of conscience, but they define it in different ways. The Conservative Constitution declares, “All persons have the inalienable right to the free exercise of religion in accordance with conscience,” but, like the conservative justices on the Supreme Court, makes clear that the free exercise of religion cannot be impeded “except where necessary to secure public peace and order or comparably compelling public ends.” The Libertarian Constitution emphasizes that “the freedoms of speech and conscience include the freedom to make contributions to political campaigns or candidates for public office.” The Progressive Constitution, by contrast, provides that “everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” but emphasizes that “Congress and the legislature of any State shall … have the power to establish by law regulations of the financing of campaigns for elected office, provided that such regulations are reasonably aimed at ensuring that all citizens are able to participate in elections meaningfully and on equal terms.” In the three Constitutions, as on the Court today, the progressives diverge from the conservatives and libertarians on campaign-finance restrictions and on religious exemptions from generally applicable laws.

Another divergence is on the topic of gun rights. Unsurprisingly, the conservative team proposes a Constitution that clearly recognizes an individual right to keep and bear arms “ordinarily used for self-defense or recreational purposes,” but it does allow for the federal and state governments to pass “reasonable regulations on the bearing of arms, and the keeping of arms by persons determined, with due process, to be dangerous to themselves or others.” The progressive proposal, by contrast, does not explicitly recognize an individual’s right to bear arms for the purpose of self-defense, but emphasizes, like the conservatives, that gun ownership is “subject to reasonable regulation.” The libertarian version alone contains no provisions for the regulation of gun rights, stating unequivocally, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

I don’t want to understate the philosophical and practical disagreements among the three Constitutions: The libertarians’ emphasis on liberty leads to a much more constricted version of federal power to regulate the economy, for example, than either the progressives or the conservatives, who want to restore Congress’s primary role in making laws and checking the president. But the areas of agreement—reining in presidential power and reducing partisanship in Congress—are far more surprising than the areas of disagreement.

The most striking similarity is that all three teams choose to reform the Constitution rather than replace it. And all three focus their reform efforts on structural and institutional protections for liberty and equality rather than creating a laundry list of new rights. As Shapiro put it in a recent interview about the project , “Why start from scratch when we can build on James Madison’s genius?”

This story is part of the project “ The Battle for the Constitution ,” in partnership with the National Constitution Center .

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Does the Constitution still work?

In the award-winning musical Hamilton , the eponymous character tells another character that the U.S. Constitution “needs a strong defense.” Hamilton may have been written a decade ago (and the Constitution more than 200 years ago), but the line, unfortunately, still holds up.

These days, the Constitution doesn’t seem like it’d win any popularity contests.

In a survey conducted by Echelon Insights after the Supreme Court Dobbs decision, voters under 50 are more than twice as likely as voters over 50 to say that the U.S. Constitution is not a relevant document today.

Trust in the presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court — all institutions whose powers and responsibilities are established by the Constitution — has fallen , and calls to eliminate the Senate and pack the Court are increasing — ironically from members of Congress, the branch whose own public support makes the Supreme Court look like Dolly Parton.

Some suggest that the Constitution — written by white men who lived and died centuries ago — is entirely outdated and should be replaced with something new and better.

I disagree.

The Constitution still empowers people

Yes, the Constitution is old — so old, in fact, that it is the world’s longest surviving written charter of government. It provides a legal framework that still works today — and would work better still if our political branches would follow it more zealously. (Real constitutionalism has never been tried.)

It has provided the United States with stability unheard of throughout human history of government, even as it provides a path for its own change — 27 times so far. And those Amendments ensure that its promises are — or should be — true for every American.

At its core, the Constitution’s aim is to empower people to make decisions about their own lives, as opposed to having their lives in the grip of a king. From its onset, it established “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people” — it put “we the people” in charge. And, in doing so, it limits government power — over everyone . It protects the natural and individual rights — of everyone .

It is virtually guaranteed that any replacement for our Constitution would empower the few in power over the many. That’s simply the state of the world and mankind. Abuse of power by the majority is a constant theme throughout human history — which our Constitution recognizes, and so it endeavors to constrain majoritarian power.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, our Constitution is the worst form of government… except for all the others that have ever been tried.

The ideals of the Constitution are what guide us

Now, there is no denying that it was written by flawed men. But it was the ideals espoused by these flawed men in the Constitution that guide every generation of Americans to work toward “a more perfect Union.”

Political theorist Paul D. Miller once noted ,

“The elites of the American Revolution crafted the words that gave the Revolution a meaning that was, in principle, universal — even to their own later detriment… Jefferson’s pretended virtue became the standard of moral aspiration for the nation and thus the basis for later generations to condemn Jefferson for his shortcomings.”

These flawed men may not have lived up their own lofty ideals. But they laid the foundation that led Americans to eliminate slavery, to expand the vote for women, to protest on behalf of civil rights. They provided within the Constitution a path for Americans to follow to advance the rights and ideals they believe in. And for the steps on that path to be of their own choosing, not forced on them by a king.

The Constitution guarantees we still have the power of free speech to make our voices heard

These days, voices on both the left and right tell Americans that they have no agency and no ability to effect change. That conspiracies and oligarchies, not grassroots voices and votes, are how things really happen.

Anyone who has spent any time in Washington, D.C. should be immune to the idea that there is anyone here controlling and executing a grand plan. But these claims have a cost, they lead to people feeling hopeless and to a lack of trust in our Constitution and our democratic process.

Free speech has always been the engine to effect change and for people to make their voices heard. And the Constitution guarantees that Americans still have that power. We see it across the country.

What we have is worth saving. What the founding fathers left us still works. It is the Constitution at work when Congress and the executive branch overstep their authority — losing public confidence in the process — and the Supreme Court exercises its responsibility to hold them accountable.

As George Washington said, the power of the Constitution will always be with the people. For Americans who are concerned about division and looking for ways to heal the deep fractures in our country, a government focused on adhering to the Constitution, even if any individual act of adherence is unpopular, is a necessary part of that.

The Constitution makes our country a symbol

In a recent naturalization ceremony, where 2,100 people became our country’s newest citizens, Los Angeles co-owner and second generation American Alan Smolinisky gave a speech on the promise of America.

“Now I know what you’re thinking. America isn’t perfect. In fact, it never has been. But we’ve always moved toward a more perfect union. Even now, we’re called to make America freer, fairer and better for all… No matter what you do, no matter how bad things look, never ever bet against America. It’s always a losing bet.”

Our Constitution has propelled the United States to be a shining city on a hill. Because of our Constitution, America is more than a country, it is a symbol. So much that one of the most divisive issues among Americans is how to handle the millions of people from around the world who would risk everything to make it onto our shores.

This Constitution Day, remember the words of Calvin Coolidge, who said that “to live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.” Let’s celebrate accordingly.

Casey Mattox is a First Amendment attorney and vice president for legal and judicial strategy at Americans For Prosperity .

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The Constitution’s relevance today

History professor stuart leibiger, ph.d., speaks at the national constitution center on the “experiment” that proved “a crucial moment in world history.”.

Each year, Constitution Day—observed on September 17—recognizes the drafting and signing of the United States Constitution in 1787 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Also, in Philadelphia is The National Constitution Center , where La Salle professor of history and department chair Stuart Leibiger, Ph.D., has been invited to deliver a scholar talk on the Constitutional Convention on Saturday, Sept. 17. The event is free, whether you attend in-person or stream online .

Leibiger studies the Founders and the Founding of the United States. He shared more on the historical significance of the U.S. Constitution and why it remains relevant today.

Your talk centers on the Constitutional Convention. So… what was it?

Leibiger : Fifty-five delegates from 12 states met in Philadelphia in the Summer of 1787 to draft the Constitution of the United States as a replacement for the first U.S. constitution, the Articles of Confederation, which was failing disastrously. Those delegates met for 3½ months and hammered out the Constitution that we live under today.

Why did it take so long to draft the Constitution?

Leibiger : The convention was not without disagreements. The biggest fight, between large-state delegates and small-state delegates, was over representation. It was finally settled with the Great Compromise, with representation in the House of Representatives based on each state’s population, and the U.S. Senate having two senators per state regardless of population. This fight nearly broke up the whole gathering. Previously, the Articles of Confederation based representation on state equality, a wonderful idea for a small state like Delaware, but horrible for a big state like Virginia, which had 13 times Delaware’s population.

What makes the Constitution so important?

Leibiger : The U.S. is the modern world’s first tremendously successful republican government. It was an experiment to launch this new form of government, where the people rule through elected representatives. This government was introduced in the late 18th century in a world of kings and monarchs. It was a crucial moment in world history. There is a famous story from the last day of the Constitutional Convention. As Ben Franklin headed home, he was stopped in the street by Elizabeth Powel, the wife of Philadelphia’s mayor. She said, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin famously answered, “Well, my dear, we have created a republic if you can keep it.”

Campus event Political science professors Mark Thomas, Ph.D., and Nicholas Staffieri, Ph.D., discuss the Supreme Court and the right to privacy in “Your Rights After Dobbs,” a Constitution Day presentation. Where: Hayman Hall 100 Date: Thursday, Sept. 15 Time: 12:30-1:45 p.m.

What can you tell us about your most recent book , which is on the topic of the Constitutional Convention?

Leibiger : It is a chronological narrative account of the Constitutional Convention. There is a wealth of wonderful primary sources on the convention. Ten of the delegates took notes. James Madison took detailed notes every day because he wanted future scholars to understand what had happened at the convention. My book, The Constitutional Convention of 1787 , is a short, scholarly, factually accurate chronological narrative based on those primary sources.

How do you teach students today about the Constitution?

Leibiger : History is not just a bunch of trivia. Instead, it really helps us understand where we are today. This semester, I am teaching a class on the Civil War. I told my students on the first day, “This class is more relevant now than at any time since I began teaching it 25 years ago.” Think about the statues of Confederate figures coming down and the divisions in our country today. So many ask, “Has the country ever been this divided?” It was much more severely divided during the Civil War. The next question I usually get is, “Are we headed toward another Civil War today?”

What can we learn from that period of extreme divisiveness that still applies today?

Leibiger : Prior to the Civil War the Supreme Court handed down the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford decision over slavery. In some ways, that ruling was like the recent Dobbs v. Jackson decision on abortion rights. Both were divisive moral issues. I like to help my students develop a deeper understanding of these relevant events and then watch them draw parallels between the past and the present.

—Christopher A. Vito

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Perspectives: Why the Constitution remains relevant today

OPINION — Thousands of county and state delegates throughout Utah will be keeping busy over the next two weekends as their respective nominating conventions take place.

There will be political speechifying and flags and banners aplenty as various candidates vie for the opportunity to be placed on the ballot for the upcoming primary and general elections. It’s also likely that there will be deep regard expressed for the U.S. Constitution and its blueprint for the American republic.

With this in mind, I’d like to remind these delegates, and anyone else so interested, what our Constitution is and why it remains relevant in our time.

The story of the U.S. Constitution begins with understanding why those who framed it chose to declare their independence from Great Britain and were willing to fight and die to secure their self-determination.

In the Declaration of Independence – the legal document that underlies the Constitution – we find the moral, philosophical and political basis for what would become the American system of government. It began with the assertion of “self evident truths” that our natural rights do not originate from government but are endowed upon “all men” by “their Creator.”

It also states that, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. …”

Did you catch that? The rights of the people come from God. The powers of the government come from the people.

This principle is key to understanding the Constitution that would follow.

At that time, the powers exercised by the king and by Parliament were only limited as far as they were willing to limit themselves.

As the Tenth Amendment Center points out :

In a nutshell, the 18th century British system the Americans went to war to free themselves from rested on a living, breathing constitution. The government itself defined and enforced whatever limits it might have. Essentially, it was unlimited in power and authority.

The American founding generation emphatically rejected this belief in government supremacy. They believed that justice, according to natural law or right, served to limit all political power.

Once the 13 states had secured their independence from Britain, they set about instituting a system that would define and limit the powers of government for the purpose of defending rather than threatening our freedoms. This means that liberty permitted government power to exist rather than power grudgingly allowing the exercise of liberty .

Even so, that power was to be strictly limited to protecting freedom with the voluntary consent of the governed.

The result of their efforts was the U.S. Constitution, which called into existence a federal government with clearly enumerated and limited powers delegated to it by the people. Those powers were deliberately separated and broken up to prevent the mischief that inevitably follows the consolidation of power in the hands of the few.

Alexis de Tocqueville, visiting the newly formed republic observed:

The attributes of the federal government were carefully defined [in the Constitution], and all that was not included among them was declared to remain to the governments of the individual states. Thus the government of the states remained the rule, and that of the federal government the exception.

The framers wisely refrained from handing the new federal government a blank check and then trusting it to do the right thing. They locked it down and spelled out the upper limits of its power.

They understood the temptations that accompany all power.

We see this in our day whenever something bad happens and politicians clamor to enact new legislation without regard as to whether it is moral, rational or actually within their legitimate scope of authority. The limits the Constitution imposes on government power weren’t meant to be observed only in good times .

They were to remind us of the foundational reasons why our government exists during those times when politicians are clamoring to centralize power out of fear, anger or desperation.

Rather than giving us a so-called “living, breathing” Constitution that bends and twists with every shifting political fad, the framers gave us a framework of principles to which we could turn whenever questions arose.

No president, Supreme Court justice or legislator is above the Constitution. It created them, not the other way around.

In this sense, the Constitution serves as a sort of political scripture to keep us on track when we’re being tempted to go astray.

There is a mechanism within the Constitution by which it can be amended, when necessary. Thankfully, the framers set the bar high enough that we wouldn’t be tempted to change it for every little issue that arose.

Although the focus for the near future will be on candidates and personalities, the battleground on which our attention should be focused is in understanding and upholding the principles of our Constitution.

Our freedoms cannot exist when we allow ourselves to become subservient to government . That is why government power must remain within its proper Constitutional boundaries.

Bryan Hyde is an opinion columnist specializing in current events and liberty viewed through what he calls the lens of common sense. The opinions stated in this article are his and not representative of St. George News.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @youcancallmebry

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bryan Hyde is a husband, father, teacher, writer, speaker of truth, and a disciple of liberty. He has been a steady voice of reason with a radio career that spans more than 3 decades and is host of the daily "Loving Liberty with Bryan Hyde" broadcast weekday mornings on the Loving Liberty Radio Network. He also co-hosts the "Society and the State" podcast. The opinions stated in this article are Hyde's own and may not be representative of St. George News.

29 Comments

Can’t say there’s really anything to disagree with here.

Off topic a bit, just an interesting thing to think about, I’ll go ahead and admit it: I am a recovering leftist. The strange part is, leftists are not at all wrong about the republican party. They are absolute corrupted, greedy filth to their core, far far worse at the national level. The problem with leftism is it clouds people’s judgment of just how bad the dems are. There’s always this ‘us vs them’ narrative that the political elites just love to keep going. I think it’s a strategy they use to cling to power, textbook ‘divide and conquer’. The fact is, no part of gov’t can ever be trusted. And the constitution has been shown to be quite flimsy when it’s attacked; a good example is the ‘patriot act’ after 9/11. I’m starting to think (or may I’m already convinced) that the 2nd amendment is the most important part of the constitution. Citizenry will always be battling with it’s gov’t I think. It’s basically just an everlasting battle against the evils of human nature. Gov’t can never be trusted. Those in gov’t must always be viewed with suspicion, constantly monitored and kept in check (which is why we need a free press, but that has been mostly hijacked and corrupted by sinister power-hungry and money-driven agendas).

Admission is the first part to recovery ?

You shouldn’t trust either side. Although, I’m so glad Hillary is not President ?

Ms Bug, I’m so glad Trump isn’t President. I don’t know what he is, but he does not behave like the other 44 presidents.

And that’s why he’s in the White House, pogo. ?

Ha! He’s in Mara Largo, silly. Occasionally he takes a day to visit the WH. :-/

Oh that’s why he’s in the WH. And all this time I was thinking it was because he suckered a whole bunch of people by playing off their fears & hatred of anyone not looking the way they do; but, especially black Presidents, and women: And they bought it “hook, line & sinker” while the rest of America slept through what was a wonderful circus act by the best clown on the planet. Now, no matter what the state of the economy from the Trump times, the right, far right, and especially the religious right, will forever be remembered for their condoning everything that has come out of his pathetic mouth. If the dems act like Trump once they get back into office: America is done!

Yep, that’s why he’s President! Lol

Trump is 1% president and 99% classless buffoon.

If this is the first president you’ve called a baloon, then shame on you. Turn off your tv, you will see that you will be much happier. ?

Or baffoon haha!

It’s BUFFoon, sweetie. 🙂 And, no, this isn’t the first president I’ve used that term for. Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush junior were buffoons too. I don’t watch television either. I cut the cord over three years ago. What else you got?

I’m glad you have called others baffoons. It goes to show, you are an equal opportunity buffoon caller, i can respect that. however you left out Obama. ?

Your comment is unfair to buffoons across the world. He is so bad he needs his own category.

I mean no disrespect, it’s BUFFoon ?

I left out Obama because he didn’t get us involved in stupid wars that we didn’t belong in. Nor was he unfaithful to his wife. I honestly didn’t “get” Obama and I’m a bit ambivalent towards him. He was, however, presidential and professional. Unlike Mr. Dotard.

Yeah, comments, there is something to disagree with; because when you have to invoke “God” into your argument, there’s no longer any sense in critical thought or discussion. The conversation for all intents & purposes, is over; unless of course you want to argue about God. It’s exactly the kind of thing the founding fathers would be against; not withstanding the fact that the words God, and Creator do appear in many of our most important documents.

point taken. i suppose i let the whole ‘god thing’ slide just because i’m so used to it. bryan hyde is a fully indoctrinated LDS mormon, after all. i really never side with atheists or the religious in these type of discussions, because i’m not sure either one is worse than the other. it usually proves pointless, from what i’ve seen.

You are so right , LBA !

The most important reason the Constitution is still relevant today is that a document of this magnitude and importance could not be written today. It just wouldn’t be possible. There is no way 50-100 people could gather today and discuss, debate and formulate anything close to our Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights and Amendments that followed. A group of critical thinking people like the founders could not be assembled in today’s volatile emotional battle for who is the most right regarding any subject or current event. The Constitution was divinely inspired to take place in this great nation at the necessary time it all came together. If it goes down, we all go down. There’s just not many people out there who understand that.

“Liberty permitted government to exist”. Those are words that have very little relevance to liberals who see government as the be all, end all. Libertarians believe that the government’s only valid functions are defending our borders and printing currency. The rest should lie in the hands of citizens and local municipalities.

There is clearly truth in much of what Hyde says pedantically. Most know the Constitution still matters, despite the vapid inference in the title. The reality is even our founders weren’t on the same page about the exact details about our government and Constitution. We have been fighting about its meaning and limitations since we declared independence. Hyde likes to gloss over that complicated story in his simplistic narrative.

There is no “simple narrative” here. He’s discussing foundational principles. There isn’t meant to be detail in the discussion.

You know a principle is true when you can inspect it from different angles and through the lenses of different circumstances and it still holds true. This article was an excellent overview of those principles.

True, we (as a nation) have turned our backs on those principles, and both parties and almost all 535 of the elected officials in DC are complete traitors to them, but that doesn’t make them any less true or relevant.

The founders disagreed, sure, and the product of that disagreement is the greatest governmental framework the world has ever known, by far. It was written based on thousands of years of history and learning about human nature.

It isn’t perfect, but history has shown again and again that when we go against those principles there are serious negative consequences. Unfortunately today the rising generations have no understanding of the foundation they stand on, and no historical perspective to know just how thin the line is between where we are and where Venezuela is. They won’t understand those consequences until like the Venezuelans we can’t afford to eat, go to movies, buy our video games (or even the electricity to run them), buy the latest smart phone, etc.

Couldn’t disagree with you more.

First, the meme that younger generations understand the Constitution less than previous ones is often based on ridiculous anecdotes.

Second, I think its fair and accurate to call Hyde’s writing a “simplistic narrative”. For example, he writes: “We see this in our day whenever something bad happens and politicians clamor to enact new legislation without regard as to whether it is moral, rational or actually within their legitimate scope of authority.” He constantly belittles various causes, activists and politicians who don’t happen to align with his narrow worldview. The quote is just one example of overly simplifying the truth as it makes selling his narrative easier. Glossing over the moral and rational underpinnings of disparate political views is just one of the tools he regularly uses to push his “simplistic narrative.”

Our country has oscillated between libertarian influences and those pushing a stronger federal influence. Our history as “the greatest governmental framework” includes just about everything along that spectrum. Hyde wants us to believe the “founders” had a simple, unified view to solve the various conflicts inherent in our system, especially individual liberty vs government power and influence. They didn’t. Plenty of scholars and historians have shown plenty of proof that our “founders” passionately disagreed about the meaning of the Constitution and scope of government power.

No one ideology or political view holds the singular claim to a moral and rational approach to government.

“No one ideology or political view holds the singular claim to a moral and rational approach to government.”

Probably. It’s always been about balancing (keeping in check) the selfish interests of the political elites (our rulers) with the interests of the masses of peasants. Hasn’t that always been the dynamic. I’ll also say again, the constitution has been proven to be quite flimsy when attacked in times of hysteria– again, post 9/11, Bush II’s war on “turr”, etc.

But really, these teeny anti-gun parades or marches or whatever they are… sorry, but it’s simple-minded, emotion driven, partially hysterical idiocy. It’s for good reason we don’t let teenies decide policy.

Nothing wrong with this opinion piece except the point you made about the rights of people come from God, they don’t. Thomas Jefferson and many other founding fathers kept God out of the Declaration of Independence for a reason, because they knew we needed to separate church and state. Jefferson was forced to come to a compromise in putting the word “creator”. He felt this allowed everyone to be happy without specifically honoring one specific god. Christians can’t help themselves in forcing their religious beliefs on everyone, especially here in Utah. It’s on our money, in the pledge of allegiance and star spangled banner. Your fairy tale is one of the biggest scams of all time. The country is infected with this disease of “in god we trust”. Many rich and powerful lobbyist use their money to push their religious agenda just as much as pharmaceutical company’s and bankers do. The majority of the country may say they are of a christian faith, but that does not mean we are a christian only country. We are a free country for all people to live and prosper, it doesn’t matter if they believe the christian fairy tale, that Scientology garbage or the one thing that humans can prove as fact, which is of course science. Other than your added fairy tale point of view, good article.

lol, i partially agree. mainly because i’ve seen first hand how backwards some of the places in the ‘bible belt’ are. it really isn’t quite as simple as you frame it tho.

Agreed it is never that simple, this was simply my venting on the subject that many Christians seem to put their beliefs in a conversation that doesn’t require religion such as our government.

The Relevance of the US Constitution Essay

If a person should live according to the ethical norms, what principles should be reflected in the Constitution of the country to regulate the development of the whole nation? The principles which are presented in the Constitution of the USA are the significant components of the Americans’ national identity.

From this point, the Constitution is the major source of the basic norms according to which the life of an average American is organized, and in relation to which foreigners make definite considerations about the country and its ideals.

Thus, the US Constitution is still relevant and important for Americans because it regulates the main aspects of the people’s life within the country, presents the fundamental principles on which the governmental structure is based, and discusses the concepts of justice, welfare, and liberty as the most important for Americans.

That is why, the relevance of the Constitution can be assessed only with references to the ideals and principles which are emphasized in it without concentrating on the year of its adoption. In spite of the fact every country has its own Constitution, the US Constitution is the symbol of the American freedom, and it is the base for realizing the ‘American dream’.

Those norms, standards, laws, and principles which are stated in the US Constitution are so important that the nation does not feel the necessity to make significant changes in the text of the Constitution or adopt the new variant.

The relevance depends on the currency, and those principles which are reflected in the Constitution are still current. There are few persons who can argue the significance of equality or freedom for everyone (Hennessey and McConnell). Nevertheless, it is impossible to reject the idea that times change, and definite alternations can be made in the Constitution.

From this point, the system of amendments emphasizes not the imperfectness of the first variant of the Constitution, but the vision of the Federalists who developed the Constitution which can be discussed as appropriate to respond to the realities of the 21 st century (Farrand).

The Constitution is the supreme law which is based on the unique rules and norms. These norms help the nation realize its inimitable characteristics which accentuate the national identity (Beeman; Hennessey and McConnell). Thus, the ideals of democracy and liberty are the main points according to which it is possible to distinguish the position of an American when he or she discusses a certain problem (Jordan).

These concepts can be examined as the ruling force of the country on its way to the further development. The USA became the synonym of the progress many years ago when the country became the world leader in relation to a lot of criteria, and the rules and notions which are stated in the Constitution contributed to this process significantly.

The USA is the land where dreams can become true, and a person can face a lot of opportunities for their realization. These associations are the results of the country’s policy which is based on the principles fixed in the Constitution. It is important to focus on the fact that the US Constitution can be discussed as relevant and useful till these associations and ideals are alive and help people to create the world of their dream, basing on the democratic ideals, concepts of liberty, justice, and equality.

Works Cited

Beeman, Richard. The Penguin Guide to the United States Constitution: A Fully Annotated Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and Amendments, and Selections from The Federalist Papers . USA: Penguin Books, 2010. Print.

Farrand, Max. The Fathers of the Constitution; a Chronicle of the Establishment of the Union . USA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012. Print.

Hennessey, Jonathan, and Aaron McConnell. The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation . USA: Hill and Wang, 2008. Print.

Jordan, Terry. The U.S. Constitution: And Fascinating Facts About It . USA: Oak Hill Publishing Co., 1999. Print.

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"The Relevance of the US Constitution." IvyPanda , 20 June 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/the-relevance-of-the-us-constitution/.

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IvyPanda . 2018. "The Relevance of the US Constitution." June 20, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-relevance-of-the-us-constitution/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Relevance of the US Constitution." June 20, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-relevance-of-the-us-constitution/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Relevance of the US Constitution." June 20, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-relevance-of-the-us-constitution/.

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How the US Constitution Has Changed and Expanded Since 1787

By: Sarah Pruitt

Updated: September 17, 2020 | Original: September 16, 2020

How the U.S. Constitution Has Changed and Expanded Since 1787

The U.S. Constitution , written in 1787 and ratified by nine of the original 13 states a year later, is the world’s longest-surviving written constitution. But that doesn’t mean it has stayed the same over time.

The Founding Fathers intended the document to be flexible in order to fit the changing needs and circumstances of the country. In the words of Virginia delegate Edmund Randolph , one of the five men tasked with drafting the Constitution, the goal was to “insert essential principles only, lest the operations of government should be clogged by rendering those provisions permanent and unalterable, which ought to be accommodated to times and events.”

Since the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791, Congress has passed just 23 additional amendments to the Constitution, and the states have ratified only 17 of them. Beyond that, many changes in the American political and legal system have come through judicial interpretation of existing laws, rather than the addition of new ones by the legislative branch.

WATCH: The Founding Fathers on HISTORY Vault

Rights of Individual Americans Were Protected

One of the biggest early criticisms of the Constitution was that it did not do enough to protect the rights of individuals against infringement by the nation’s new central government. To remedy this, James Madison immediately drafted a list of rights for citizens that the federal government did not have the power to take away. Included in this Bill of Rights were freedom of religion, speech and of the press, the right to bear arms, the right to a trial by jury and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.

How Americans Elect Presidents, VPs and Senators Changed

The Constitution stated that the runner-up in the presidential election would become the vice president—a system that nearly sparked a constitutional crisis in 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr , received the same number of electoral votes. The 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, mandated that electors vote separately for president and vice president.

More than a century later, the 17th Amendment similarly changed the election process for the U.S. Senate , giving the American people—rather than state legislatures—the right to elect senators.

The Supreme Court’s Role Expanded

WATCH: The Supreme Court

In comparison to its treatment of the executive and legislative branches of government, the Constitution itself remained relatively vague on the role of the Supreme Court and the judicial branch, leaving its organization largely up to Congress.

It was John Marshall , the nation’s fourth chief justice, who established the power of the Court by asserting its right to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional . “It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is,” Marshall wrote in the landmark case Marbury v. Madison (1803). Since then, the Court has taken an increasingly active role in interpreting the laws made and actions taken by the other two branches, and ensuring that both abide by the Constitution.

Balance of Power Tipped From the States to Federal Government

At the time the Constitution was written, individual state governments were more powerful than the new nation’s central government. That balance of power quickly changed over the years, as the federal government expanded and took an increasingly dominant role.

Federalism became the law of the land thanks to Supreme Court decisions like McCulloch v. Maryland (1823), which affirmed the federal government’s right to take actions “necessary and proper” to meet the urgent needs of the nation.

Debate over the issue of states’ rights continued up to (and beyond) the Civil War , when the Union victory and the dawn of Reconstruction marked the beginning of a new expansion of federal power. Passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913 gave the government the power to collect income tax , a change that effectively reversed the prohibition against a “direct tax” included in Article I of the Constitution.

People Other Than White Men Gained the Right to Vote

In the Civil War ’s aftermath, three “Reconstruction Amendments” sought to more fully realize the founders’ ideal of all men being created equal. While the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, the 14th Amendment extended the status of citizens to African Americans, contradicting the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857).

The 15th Amendment ensured voting rights to Black men (although Southern states would soon find ways to restrict those rights ). In 1920, after ratification of the 19th Amendment gave voting rights to all American women for the first time, suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt memorably declared that “To get the word ‘male’ in effect out of the Constitution cost the women of the country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign .”

PHOTOS: Women’s Suffrage

The Executive Branch’s Power Expanded

Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, Congress was the dominant branch of government, as the framers of the Constitution intended . Though some earlier presidents—including Andrew Jackson , Abraham Lincoln , Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson —claimed more powers for themselves, especially in wartime, the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt marked a turning point in the expansion of executive power. Despite passage of the 22nd Amendment , which limited future presidents to only two terms in office, the growing power of the presidency was a trend that showed no signs of slowing down.

Corporations Have Begun to Be Treated as Individuals

The Constitution doesn’t mention corporations or their rights, nor does the 14th Amendment. But beginning in the late 19th century, with its verdict in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (1886), the Supreme Court began recognizing a corporation as a “person” with all the rights that entailed. Later Court rulings—including a 5-4 decision in the notable First Amendment case Citizens United vs. FEC (2010)—expanded this controversial application of the 14th Amendment to protecting corporations from certain types of government regulation. In his Citizens United dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens turned again to the nation’s founding document, arguing that “Corporations…are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.”

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