3.7: A Practical Constitution

A Practical Constitution

The Founders who crafted the United States Constitution were among the most knowledgeable and clever political theorists of their era and perhaps any era. Yet the Constitution they created was not a purely theoretical document; it was molded and shaped by the political, economic, and social realities of the time. To succeed, the system of government produced by the Constitutional Convention needed support throughout the new nation. In other words, it needed to please various conflicting factions — large states and small states, Northern states and Southern states, Federalists and Anti-Federalists — all while maintaining its functionality.

Notwithstanding the constraints under which it was produced, the Constitution has remained in effect to the present day. America has changed in many ways the Founders did not and could not predict, but it is still governed according to a plan first put to parchment in Philadelphia over 200 years ago. That plan has been amended 27 times since its ratification, but the underlying structure of American government it established — three branches, each with distinct powers and the ability to check the other two — is still intact.

Americans tend to take a great deal of pride in their constitution. At times they exhibit a certain degree of reverence for it, exalting the delegates to the Constitutional Convention as almost mythological figures and using the words constitutional and unconstitutional as though they were synonyms for good and evil. Yet the Founders were mortals, constrained by political realities, and the 27 amendments testify to the fact that their handiwork was not perfect (even though Americans still disagree on whether all of those amendments were necessary or beneficial).

One area where the Constitution has not aged well is on the topic of slavery. The Founders tiptoed delicately around the issue — the words slave and slavery did not appear anywhere in the original Constitution — and made compromises they felt were necessary to prevent Southern states from walking out of the Constitutional Convention and fracturing the young nation. Today, the idea of compromising on the issue of slavery in any way and for any reason strikes most people as morally reprehensible. Perhaps Northern delegates could have persuaded Southern delegates to accept terms less favorable to slavery. Or perhaps refusing to compromise would have split the Union from the very beginning, resulting in an independent South where slavery would have lasted much longer. There is no way to know for sure.

Ultimately, the best approach to the Constitution is neither excessive deference nor rash revisionism. Constitutions sometimes need to change, and America’s is no exception. The fact that things have been done a certain way since 1789 is no guarantee that they should continue to be done the same way going forward. At the same time, constitutions are hard to change for a reason, and the durability of the Constitution should give us users pause before we clamor for amending it anew. Tinkering with intricate machines, though often justified, can lead to unpredictable consequences that may even be worse than the original problems. Every word in the Constitution was put there for a reason, and we should always endeavor to understand why the Constitution is the way it is before attempting to change it.