Constitutions then and now

This is from one of our columnists, Wes Riddle. Thought it deserved to be read in more than just Harker Heights.

It has been four years since the attack on our nation September 11th, 2001. Iraqi representatives are now struggling to write a constitution, which they will ultimately have to talk to their people about and then ratify (or reject) through special election.
Our Constitution, by way of comparison, was written over 218 years ago and ratified 216 years ago after two years of debate, in the Year of our Lord 1789.
The president, in order to give the Iraqi government encouragement, and perhaps to limit U.S. domestic expectations as to the product, said at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention August 22nd, that “we understand how difficult it is to write a constitution from our history—our Constitution has been amended many times over.”
The statement hit me like a splash of cold water, and I wonder how many Americans realize what a stupid thing the president said.
A conservative president—or at least one whose conservatism embraced strict construction of the Constitution—would never have said such a thing, either by referring to the Constitution in the context of one in Iraq, or by lading it with so many negative and erroneous implications.
Moreover, for the president to say it is far worse than someone else, because he is the chief executive of this Constitutional Republic. The implication that our Constitution was deeply flawed from the beginning, or that democratic government necessarily entails frequent amendment to its organic law for a just and stable regime to emerge, is hardly History 101 or Civics 101. Indeed, it is pretty much horse hockey.
The historic War Between the States witnessed a de facto suspension in the operation of the original Constitution, and this fact may or may not imply a serious flaw in the original Constitution. But that remains a debate of first order amongst historians and constitutional scholars, and the issues involved are manifold, difficult and nuanced.
To flippantly assert that the Constitution was messed up and so was amended a lot of times, is more worthy of a middle school essay than a speech by the president.
In point of fact, we’ve had 27 amendments.
The first ten are known as the Bill of Rights and were essentially agreed to during the ratification process to ensure passage of the Constitution. They went into effect in 1791, virtually in tandem with the main body of the document. So that leaves 17 amendments in 214 years, an average of one every 13 years.
The last amendment in 1992 regulates congressional salaries and is something of an anomaly among the rest. Its origin is the early Republic too, but the measure lay dormant until a college student discovered it was procedurally “stuck.”
The United States in its first 76 years added just two amendments besides the Bill of Rights, and these dealt with technical matters of Judicial reach and operation of the Electoral College.
Indeed, most amendments are procedural improvements, not substantive or philosophical.
Since George Washington, all presidents adhered to two terms (maximum) in office. Only when Franklin Roosevelt ran until he dropped, did we have to amend the Constitution to reflect what was the political tradition and custom.
Middle class values likewise have always been Victorian, as it were, and people moderated drink or shunned it altogether through both suasion and legislation at community, county and state level.
Two amendments to the Constitution involve a passing of national prohibition on alcohol and subsequent repeal.
One amendment involves when the terms in office begin and end, and when Congress shall assemble; another involves how succession to the office of president occurs in the event of his death.
One amendment specifies Electors for the District of Columbia (DC), so it can participate in the selection of president and vice-president.
One amendment extends the franchise to women; one prohibits poll taxes in order to vote; and another lowers the voting age to eighteen.
In all the years of our history, we’ve had only two short periods when several amendments to the Constitution occurred nearly at once.
In other words, there are only two periods—an average of once every hundred years—during which it can be argued the Constitution lagged social reform of democratic majorities.
The first was during Reconstruction, after the War Between the States. The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments redefined the rights attendant to a national citizenship and integrated freedmen (former slaves) for the first time into the polity.
The second period during the Progressive Era, resulted from the eclectic demands of rapid industrialization, mass immigration and the rise to world power status, and gave us the 16th through 19th Amendments.
The 16th provided for the income tax, which proved also to be the wherewithal for big government and the prosecution of modern wars.
For all its amendments, however, the U.S. Constitution remains the oldest fundamentally unchanged governing document in the history of the world.
It would be good if historians were left to describe the constitutional “regimes” which follow amendments, especially following the periods of Reconstruction and the Progressive Era.
Unfortunately, constitutional regime change is also identifiable after the New Deal and again since the Sixties until it has become a kind of constantly moving target.
Constitutional change is wrought now, not by amendment but by “living” reinterpretation of the Supreme Court supplemented virtually at will by congressional and executive edict.
Constitutions then and now are difficult instruments to construct and even more difficult to live by and maintain according to the intent of their founders.
As the president would have it, it is certainly nice to know that you don’t have to get it completely right the first time since you can always amend the instrument.
It is by far much better to know you can count on a constitution’s meaning, unless and until it is amended.
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Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford. He is Adjunct Professor of American History and Government at Central Texas College (CTC) and Fellow with the National Humanities Institute in Washington, D.C. Widely published in the academic and conservative opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary. Email: wes@wesriddle.com.