OUR BELOVED CONSTITUTION

Every once in a while something hits your eye like a blast of powder. Such an incident occurred to me recently in a current issue of The New Yorker magazine (JAN. 17, 2011). Harvard history professor, Jill Lepore, has published an article called THE COMMANDMENTS subtitled: The Constitution and its worshippers.
I love history, but my field is the European Middle Ages. I must confess, like most Americans, I know little of the Constitution. I often confuse it with the Bill of Rights and The Declaration Of Independence. I have reason to believe that tons of legal opinions have been written by our courts interpreting our Constitution, which has often made important conclusions about its meaning with 5-4 decisions.
We have a “five to four” court in session right now. The history of the courts wrestling with the intent of the Constitution indicates that it is a complex document. Politicians like to note that they carry a copy of it in their pocket, which denotes a kind of reverence for it, making them appear to be patriotic, but does it mean they understand it?
Recently, the new Congress had the Constitution read on the floor of the house, an abridged version, however, since the part about legalizing slavery was left out, as was the amendment about the prohibition against alcohol. Professor Lepore offered a most delightful account of its beginning, explaining the Constitution had been written on four pieces of animal parchment containing forty four hundred words.
She noted that the current leader of the House loves to tell people he carries a copy of The Constitution. At a Tea Party rally in Ohio, John Boehner told the listeners: And I’m going to stand here with the Founding Fathers who wrote in the Preamble, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It happens to be that Boehner quoted, not the Constitution, but rather the Declaration of Independence. Oops.
In Article III, Section 3, the Attainder of Treason clause, the phrase Corruption of Blood is mentioned. This is an example of how difficult it is to understand such a complex instrument as this one. The Anti-Federalists complained that the common man could not understand the Constitution because it is willfully incomprehensible. Patrick Henry went further by declaring that no man on earth can know its real operation.
When it was sent to the states for ratification, Rhode Island rejected it, while those that passed it, did so by a close margin after rigorous debate: 89 to 79 in Virginia and 30 to 27 in New York. A New England farmer who criticized its inexplicitness, complained that it was made like a fiddle, with but few strings, but so that the ruling Majority could play any tune upon it they pleased.
The pro-slavery part of the Constitution produced heated debate. Vice President George Dallas of Texas (under Polk), believed that the Constitution prohibited Congress from extending slavery to the Western Sates, While William Lloyd