The Constitution
The United States Constitution, in its modern form, is a document that is at once eloquent in its exposition of American values as well as inspiring in its vision of personal liberty. Reviving the Constitution as an integral part of everyday life would go far in restoring democracy and rebirthing liberty in a country that has forgotten its revolutionary origins.
The Constitution was originally intended to be a contract between three entitities: the states, the federal government, and the people. The Framers of the Constitution, having just won a revolution against a powerful king, wanted to prevent their new government from becoming the type of tyrannical empire represented by George III. Power was split up between two governments, state and federal, each designed to check the ambitions of the other, and at each level of government, power was split again into different branches. At the foundation of their government, they enshrined the power of the people as the greatest shield against despotic rule.
The assumption girding their new nation was that all forms of power were dangerous, and that anyone with power had to be immediately distrusted. Government was a necessary evil, because while it protected rights, it also elevated some people above others. The Framers knew that power was seductive and had to be contained. “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” James Madison commented in The Federalist No. 46.
Thus, it was imperative that at the slightest hint of a power grab, the government have the ability to check its attendant parts; and failing that, the people rise up in defense of their liberty. This last point is especially important: the Framers were insistent that whenever power became too centralized and authority too corrupt, the people had the right to do away with their government and institute a new one. “The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government,” George Washington reminded the country in his farewell address. James Madison remarked that, “The Constitution of the United States was created by the people of the United States composing the respective states, who alone had the right.” The Framers put in the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution, which reserved rights and powers expressly to “the people.” Thomas Jefferson, in one of his more anti-authoritarian moments, even went so far as to reflect that, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
The people were always seen as the last bulwark of freedom. And so it is no surprise that today, with the people largely removed from the everyday governance of society, that there is so little freedom left.
Two trends have guided the interpretation of the Constitution since its inception in 1789. One has been a trend towards the expansion of democracy and the commitment of the law towards the weakest members of society. We see that in the Reconstruction Amendments, which ended slavery and extended citizenship to any man born in the United States, the 19th Amendment, which extend voting rights to women, and in the many opinions by those Justices on the Supreme Court who saw the Constitution as an instrument in furthering the dignity of every American.
The other trend has not been so noble. Instead, it has occupied itself with the preservation of social inequalities towards certain privileged groups and even the expansion of power in government. It has depicted the Constitution as a crude political compromise between various interest groups and lobbies, where police can act at will and the authorities are always right. We see this trend best exemplified in the current American leadership, which claims exemption from certain constitutional prohibitions, argues that the government possesses unlimited power during a time of war, and has restrained the people from taking control over their lives.
It is this trend, sadly, which has won the upper hand and which is now leading to the very nightmares of those revolutionaries who broke away from Great Britain. The Constitution has been forgotten, and with it, the last defense against government oppression.
There is talk today that liberty must be given up to better preserve security. This is a trap, designed to construct a false choice. They are hardly opposites — liberty is the only true security. Only a slave is content without his liberty, and there is no security in slavery, as anyone with half a brain would instantly realize. A “war on terror” without the protections of the Constitution is a flimsy pretext for power.
The more we hear about terrorism, the less we hear about the law, and the rule of law. There is a reason for that. James Madison warned us centuries ago that perpetual war leads to a dark era of tyanny and oppression: “Of all the enemies to public liberty,” he wrote, “war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.” “War,” Thomas Paine observed, was the “art of conquering at home: the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made for expenditures.”
War and tyranny are inseparable blood brothers — where there is one, the other is always nearby. And if tyranny is to be staved off in the United States, then the war on terror must end and the Constitution returned to its preeminence as the dominant force in American politics. Instead of talking about war, we ought to be talking about how to better abide by the Constitution. Instead of building secret prisons and phone wiretaps, we ought to be ending America’s addiction to oil and bringing troops back to this country from around the world. Instead of adding to the powers of the President, we ought to be devolving power back to everyday communities so that no one like George W. Bush could ever wield so much authority in the history of the human race ever again.
History records that republics inevitably end in empires. The foundations of the republic eventually grow old and begin to corrode; power begins to find ways to eat at its political chains and expand; and the people begin to lose touch with their government. By the time it becomes obvious that democracy has been destroyed, the people clamor for a leader who comes out of nowhere promising to restore order. He, in turn, becomes their new tyrant, and the people are made to suffer.
Perhaps it is inevitable that the same thing will happen to the United States. Perhaps these forces now running through American culture, society, and government are simply too inexorable to be dealt with. Perhaps the destruction of democracy is inevitable at this point.
But I could not be satisifed with that. As an American, I was raised to believe that our country was different, special, and a beacon onto the world. I am in every way cynical of everything I was taught growing up, but there is still some aspect of me which believes that in some way, perhaps we can find a way to defy history, the same way that the mythological heroes of another era were also able to defy a powerful tyrant. Perhaps there is a way where the dream of perfect freedom in society is still possible, however unlikely it might appear in the twilight of American supremacy. Perhaps there is some hope for the people of a great nation to renounce the sins of their forefathers — in slavery, in genocide, in empire — and, in such a manner, absolve themselves and their descendants of the curse of domination and control. Perhaps there is a way to restore the more expansive, just, and enlightened trend of the Constitution, and in doing so, truly participate in the “spreading of freedom” — this time to myself and to my country.
The United States is in no way perfect. But at the end of the day, I realize it is my only home, and while I would leave it if I had to, I would mourn the loss of what might have been a country that was just a little different than other countries, which really believed in its ideals and values and then went ahead and took that extra step of living up to them.
“We the people,” the Constitution begins, “of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” This one piece of paper could do much for the cause of human freedom. We ought to remember it.
“O, let America be America again — The land that never has been yet — And yet must be — the land where every man is free. The land that’s mine — the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME — Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.
“Sure, call me any ugly name you choose — The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives, We must take back our land again, America!
“O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath — America will be!
“Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain — All, all the stretch of these great green states — And make America again!”
– Langston Hughes
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