Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The Constitution: A flawed but useful document

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

This is Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America. It was the result of a compromise between states in the south and states in the north. It has since been superseded by the Fourteenth Amendment. It’s only purpose now is to remind us of the imperfect nature of the document in which it is found, the people which wrote that document, and the circumstances within which it was written.

The Constitution is many things, but a perfect document fit to decide all questions for all time it is not. It is a framework. It was meant to be a framework. It was meant to be interpreted. It was meant to be supplemented. It was not meant to be preserved intact. It was not meant to be worshiped. It was not meant to encapsulate an eighteenth century ideal that we were to hew closely to for all eternity. It was the foundation on which an extensive and changeable legal reality was to be built.

Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 is all the evidence we need that the Constitution is only a starting point; that the Constitution is just a document written by men (and just white men at that) a long time ago in a very different country. It is an important document, but it is just a document. It doesn’t tell us what to do, it just illuminates the choices.

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