Reflection on the Constitution
I received a friendly reply to my last post from a gentleman who wrote that the constitution “clearly defines what our government is allowed to do,” to the exclusion of health care. Here’s my response:
The Constitution is definitely an important consideration, though I must address your assertion of its clarity. The founding fathers’ Constitution was clear enough to warrant amendments (via Section V), repeals of amendments (like Amendment 18), and a historically broad variety of interpretation. In other words, the Constitution, in its original and present forms, has never been a comprehensive or static definition of our government. The original document had a lot of loose ends.
For example, the Preamble states that the Constitution was established to “insure Domestic Tranquility” and to “promote the general Welfare,” among other purposes. Article 1 Section 8 further clarifies the power of the government to “lay and collect Taxes [...] to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” Assuming that “general welfare” is not a superfluous clause, the Constitution does beg the question of what specific actions of congress these clauses permit. Does it include public education, which is otherwise absent from the Constitution? If a centralized effort to moderate desperation, particularly that suffered by innocents on account of an accidental circumstances, could be shown to promote our society’s general welfare and tranquility, then might the Constitution allow for such actions to be taken by our government? In this way, the Constitution invites interpretation.
I think that the founding fathers did an excellent job of creating a dynamic document, having the foresight to acknowledge its imperfections and the necessity of change. Were change and interpretation barred from the Constitution, we’d likely have slaves and gun control, and we’d lack universal suffrage, those being later additions. The enduring value of the Constitution lies not in legalistic restrictions, but in its affirmation of the general spirit of our government.
