A Republic
By: Marcus Smith
When the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were finished writing the Constitution a woman standing outside of the state house where the delegates had met for the last summer stopped Benjamin Franklin as he was walking by and asked, "What kind of a government have you created for us??, to which Franklin replied "A Republic, if you can keep it."
Speaking about the major process that the Iraqi government was going through at the time it was forming its new, post-American occupation, Constitution Jay Leno commented, "Why don't we just let them use ours, we're not using it any more?"
Although I find Leno's comment to be humorous (as it was intended to be) the reality of the situation is that we are still using our Constitution; the problem lies in the fact that we are using the wrong way.
In the realm of Jurisprudence (the philosophy of law) we have seen two major philosophies emerge as primary ways in which judges and politicians interpret and apply the Constitution. It is the faults of one of these methods of Constitutional interpretation that I view Americas Constitution being torn to shreds.
The first of these methods is the idea of a "Living Constitution." Advocates of this method of Constitutional interpretations see the Constitution as a document that should be read and applied in the spirit of the time period in which it is being read. This allows judges and politicians to manipulate the text of the Constitution into meaning whatever it is that they think it should mean for our day and age. For example, the right for a woman to have an abortion was established in the case of Roe v. Wade (1973). The grounds that the Supreme Court gave for such a right was rooted in a "right to privacy." Anyone reading this letter today can go to a copy of the Consitution and look at it 'till they're blind' and they will never see a "right to Privacy" in it. That's because the right to privacy that the Supreme Court is talking about was created by the court itself in one of its rulings. They looked at the fourteenth amendment and manipulated its words until they created what they called a "Right to Privacy."
My friends and family members, mark my words, the United States Constitution will not lose its life because of a tyrannical president or socialistic Senator; the United States Constitution will not lose its life because of a conspiring enemy abroad or a terrorist group within our midst; the United States Constitution will lose its life because Supreme Court Justices and D.C. Politicians will use the "living constitution" method of interpretation until every word of the Constitution has been distorted to the point to where everything that our founding fathers ever established in it will be a thing of the past.
The second method of interpretation is the method that I most closely follow. It is called Originalism.
This method seeks to interpret and apply the Constitution according to its origainal meaning, that is, according to the meaning of the several clauses of the Constitution as the founding fathers understood it in 1787.
Judges who follow this method will go back to the time of the creation of the Constitution, find the meanings of the specific phrase that a present case invokes, and then apply those original meanings to today's case as it was originally meant to apply.
The safety in doing this is as follows. The United States Constitution was a document that was debated upon by the people, ,and eventually, after several close votes, accepted by the people of 1787 and put into action by their will. When the people were debating whether to accept the Constitution or not they wer arguing over the priciples of the Consitution as the founding fathers understood them. hus, "We the People" have not accepted the Constitution accoring to Justice David Souter's views as to what it means. Nor have we accepted it according to the views of an other future Supreme Court Justice or politician. We the people have only given our consent ot the Constitution in accordance with the view of the foundingf fathers. So by allowing federal judges to interpret the Constitution in accordance with today's thoughts as to what it should mean we are allowing ourselves to be governed by a Constitution that "We the People" have NO accepted.
We are a diverse people. I could walk into a grocery store in just about anwhere in America (besides Provo, Utah), hand pick a dozen people at random, and out of those dozen they're will be at least 5 or 6 different opinions on any given issue. This is a good thing. We should all be entitled to have and express our own opinions. At the same time, we should not have to be bound by anybody else's opinion. However, nothing more nor nothing less is happening with the interpretation and application of the Constitution today; that is, we are merely being bound by the opinions of nine people in Washington D.C., and at no time have we ever given our consent to their opinions. The only time "We the People" have given consent to the opinions of a single group was in 1788 when we accepted the opinions of our founding fathers as they were expressed in the constitution. Which is precisely why we all should be bound to what they meant when they wrote it.
By: Marcus Smith
Any typing errors are to be charged to Wendell Haws Eyring Jr.