Our United States Constitution should be in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest and longest-lasting constitution in all the world’s history. How is it that this rather short document, sometimes called “four little pages,” was able to survive for 200 years, enabling our nation to grow to a world-class power while still retaining our individual liberties?
The first principle of our Constitution is reliance on a written Constitution. Our Founding Fathers gave us a government whose powers and limitations were defined on paper for all to see, rejecting the British notion of an unwritten constitution that can change with parliamentary majorities.
The second principle of our Constitution is sovereignty of the people, the concept that government is the servant of the people, not their master. That was an original idea in 1787; it is fundamentally different from the Magna Carta in which rights were wrested from a reluctant king who was thought to possess inherent powers.
The third principle of our Constitution is limited government, the concept that the Federal Government enjoys only those powers that are listed, and no others. Even the majority of our people and of our elected officials may not interfere with our God-given individual rights.
The fourth principle of our Constitution is the structure of government we call the Separation of Powers. The awful power of government was separated, first into the Federal Government and the individual states, and then into the three branches – legislative, executive, and judicial.
James Madison, the principal architect of our Constitution, believed that this original institutional design created by the Constitution is the best way to achieve the twin goals of liberty and justice. He bluntly said, the “preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.”
The fifth principle of our Constitution is economic freedom for every individual, combined with the concept that our nation is one economic unit. The Constitution was designed to safeguard the opportunity to engage freely in any business, trade, occupation, or profession, the right to own private property, and the right to make contracts that will be enforced.
Only a nation that enjoys economic freedom can enjoy political freedom. Only if you are secure in the ownership of your property, and the right to choose your occupation and switch to another, can you speak your mind, and vote your choice without fear of having your livelihood confiscated.
At the same time, the Constitution prevented any state from imposing trade barriers against the other states. This Commerce Clause made our nation one economic system, giving us a “common market” 150 years before Western Europe discovered its advantages.
The sixth principle of our Constitution is representative government under constitutional procedures and restraints. The Separation of Powers principle mandates separate and distinct terms for each federal office, with each office voted on separately. The separation of the Congress into the Senate and the House was an inspired division of power which balances the interests of the big-population states and the small-population states.
The Electoral College, our system of electing American Presidents, is an ingenious method of adapting representative government to the Separation of Powers guidelines. It provides a basis for the national leadership our country needs.
On the last day of the Constitutional Convention, wise old Benjamin Franklin rose to say, “I doubt whether any other convention may be able to make a better Constitution. It astonishes me to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does.”
When the news rang out in Philadelphia 200 years ago this month, George Washington wrote to Lafayette that it was “little short of a miracle that the delegates from so many different states should unite in forming a system of national government.”
One of the most eloquent tributes to our Constitution was penned by the popular 20th century writer, James Michener: “The writing of the Constitution of the United States is an act of such genius that philosophers still wonder at its accomplishment and envy its results. They fashioned a nearly perfect instrument of government. What this mix of men did was create a miracle in which every American should take pride. The accumulated wisdom of mankind speaks in this Constitution.”
