Congress and the Constitution

The 112th Congress will convene tomorrow and the leadership of the House of Representatives has decided that the entire text of the United States Constitution shall be read aloud as a part of the proceedings. Whether a significant fraction of the members will be in attendance or, if so, will actually pay attention is another matter.

Although we could hope that our Representatives would have a thorough understanding of the Constitution, it is clear from their past statements that few do. Here, then, are a few thoughts that may help:

1. The first three words of the Constitution are "We The People" not "We the States".
2. The tenth Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (emphasis added)
3. To deprive some half a million citizens of any representation in the Senate and of full representation in the House, merely because they happen to live within the boundaries of the District of Columbia, is another of the injustices perpetrated by the Constitution. Consider correcting this - urgently - even if there is a modest partisan political cost.
4. Not even the authors of the Constitution agreed on what it meant. If you haven't yet done so, read the Federalist Papers: if you have read them, read them again.
5. The will of the people is not paramount so stop saying that it is. The people could vote to reinstitute slavery or to deny the vote to men (women are a majority now) or to recriminalize adultery and homosexuality - as they once were in many States - and set the penalty to death by stoning as in Iran. While these are unlikely outcomes, one reason for the existence of the Supreme Court is to protect the People from themselves.

Understand that the Constitution specifies how the government is organized, enumerates certain powers of government, and guarantees certain individual rights. It's one exercise in social engineering was Prohibition. Mandated by the 18th Amendment, which was adopted in 1919, Prohibition was unusual in that it limited the freedoms enjoyed by the People. It was an almost immediate disaster but was not repealed until 1933. Avoid social engineering and absolutely shun any constitutional reductions in freedom.

Consider that we are currently fighting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that we have also fought numerous wars since 1945 without benefit of a Declaration of War. The Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11) gives the Congress the power to declare war. Use this power to stop the President from involving us in foreign adventures at great cost in lives and treasure. Let the need to go to war be the subject of debate except when we are directly attacked.

There is no need for a Balanced Budget Amendment. Budget deficits, while frequently abused, are an essential part of financial management. What would have been the outcomes of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and World War II had we been unable to borrow to finance those efforts? The solution is restraint and the willingness to say 'NO' to those who demand benefits without the will to pay for them. Since the majority of government expenditures are transfer payments, and the majority of voters are now net takers from the treasury, this will be hard. George Bernard Shaw described well your dilemma:

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights (the first ten Amendments) were a very flawed document - slavery, denial of women's right to vote, and the appointment of Senators by State Legislatures among them. It is still not a perfect document so treat it with caution and, particularly, mind the words of Thomas Jefferson who understood that the authors had no special knowledge or insight and was well aware of the risks of treating the Constitution as a sacred document immune to change:

"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did beyond amendment. . . . Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs . . . Each generation is as independent of the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before."

So be modest in your actions and seek to serve the long term interests of your country rather than the short term interest of yourselves or of some strange ideology.