Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:03 pm Post subject: The New Yorker, April 5
While it is shocking to read that a mere 72% of a thousand people surveyed had never read the Constitution in its entirety, I very much believe this to be true. Despite the large percentage of citizens who have not read the whole Constitution, I think it is true that most of us consider it to be one of the main documents that shape our daily lives. What does this mean? Is it wrong to go to rallies and riots without reading the full Constitution? Are we disrespecting our nation by not taking the time to read this shaping document?
I find it extremely interesting that between 1789 and 1860, California was the only state that required the Constitution to be taught in school. This shows how uneducated the incoming generation was on the history of our nation. Unfortunately, even though the requirement of teaching the Constitution in schools has increased across the country, a majority of citizens prove to still be unaware of the content in its entirety.
In terms of the interpretation of the text itself, we have seen the country fight for their own personal beliefs, defending them with their interpretations of the Constitution: "There is nothing in the United States Constitution that gives the Congress, the President, or the Supreme Court the right to declare that white and colored children must attend the same public schools" (James Eastland). People in opposition to Eastland's statement might have interpreted the Constitution as applying solely to white, upper class citizens. Because of the lack of specificity in certain areas of the document, arguments with conflicting viewpoints on the intentions of our Founding Fathers continue to arise. Therefore, I agree with the article in that "what has made the Constitution durable is the same as what makes it demanding: the fact that so much was left out."
On another note, those trick questions in the article really surprised me! Personally, I have heard and used several of the phrases in the article when referring to the Constitution. To read that those words do not even appear in the document itself further proves how limited my knowledge is, along with many other people's.
As I was reading this article, I was wondering if there was a way of getting a non biased breakdown of the Constitution. I realize that every article published has a bias, as the language of the author's writing depicts his/her opinion. Perhaps this is why we cannot agree on many issues. Some people get caught up in the rhetoric of the Constitution, whereas others briefly read sections of it and take of it what they may.
So, here is my proposition: I think that on Law Day or Social Justice Day or one of those days at CSW, the community as a whole should try to dissect sections of the Constitutions. I realize this is an impossible task, as each person's interpretation would differ, and many heated arguments would arise...But isn't that what happens in reality? Maybe it is worth a shot.
I was quite surprised that three delegates refused to sign the Constitution. This is because after gaining independence from the British, it seemed the colonists were completely united and would unanimously do everything. To me, the delegates not signing greatly differed from the prior actions of the colonists.
I think that is extremely significant that the following line was including the preamble of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” I did not realize this until the article mentioned it. I think this is important because it demonstrates that the colonists truly endeavored to create a government antithetical to that of the British. The colonists wanted to ensure that their government would by tyrannical or oppressive.
In response to Heather’s point about the high percentage of people that have not read the constitution, I agree that it is surprising that most people have not read it. Nevertheless, I am less surprised because the Constitution is not taught in all schools and a significant percentage of people likely are not completely informed about the country’s history, part of which includes the Constitution. I do think that this problem needs to be addressed because the Constitution greatly affects people’s daily lives. Maybe more states in addition to California should require the Constitution to be taught in school. Also, this problem is not surprising as during the middle of nineteenth century, nearly all white men had voting rights. Not all white men, however, could read and as a result, they did not know what the Constitution said.
The article also pointed out why there are several interpretations of the Constitution. In several spots, the Constitution has vague wording. This is most notable with “We the People.” The authors intended it to exclusively include white men. Consequently, when segregation and racism existed, people had a right to dissent and call these actions unconstitutional because of this ambiguous wording.
Heather brought up a good point about whether if there could be a non-biased interpretation of the Constitution. This would be ideal as it would greatly reduce the number of disagreements. I believe this is unlikely as everyone has a different interpretation shaped by their unique background.
Lastly, I think today the Constitution plays an increasingly large role in our daily lives as a range of politicians mention the Constitution. Obama and liberals want change and a progressive interpretation of the Constitution. In contrast, conservatives and the Tea Party want people to have a traditional interpretation of the Constituion
To answer Rachel’s questions, I believe that what the Constitution actually says and what people think it says are equally important. They are significant in different ways. What the Constitution actual says is crucial because it protects certain rights and demonstrates the type of country and government that the Founding Fathers had envisioned. What people think the Constitution says is important because this will influence how people live their daily lives. Additionally, what people think the Constitution says influences countless court cases regarding whether certain doings are constitutional.
I am ashamed and embarrassed to admit that, until this weekend, I was part of the 72% Heather mentioned in her post. Yes I have read the bill of rights and I did correctly answer all of the true/false questions, but those are not the founding principals, the rules and regulations, on which our country is supposed to run. This all makes me wonder just how qualified I am to argue about constitutional matters, or for that matter how qualified any of the other 72% of the 1000 people are either.
Most of the time if I argue with my brother over something I don’t know the technical details of, cars for example, he can catch it pretty quickly and call me out on it. But if no one knows the technical details, who is there to call us out? Are we all just wasting our breath? Debating in circles about things we might not be able to correctly back up? Misrepresenting the document we are trying to defend? Something to think about I suppose. (i just realized thats probably more questions than i should post. sorry!)
Stepping aside from that for the moment I think that both the hard technicalities and the interpretations have to be taken seriously. For example Judicial Review. In class Rachel pointed out that nowhere in the constitution does it actually grant the Supreme Court the power of Judicial Review. It was only after interpretation that this power was assumed, but it is now widely accepted and helps define what the Supreme Courts does. This is an exception though. I think that now a lot of what people think the constitution says is based on rhetoric. That is what they have heard in say, The Bill of Rights boiled down to catch phrases. “right to bare arms” “separation of church and state” “freedom of speech.” There are all based on the constitution, but I wonder if the majority of Americans could tell you why. The why, I think, is the most important part.
“Please post your thoughts on it and it's connection to the material we've been been discussing. What does it actually say? What do people think it says? Which matters more? Why?”
Assuming “it” is the constitution….
First, a couple responses-
Wes. Does it “actually say” anything? Is there any way for us to know what it was intended to mean? I wonder if certainclauses like the “militia/bear arms” one was loosely worded on purpose. It seems like it would be in the spirit of the document, which is often relaxed and intentionally mutable.
Lily- “But if no one knows the technical details, who is there to call us out? Are we all just wasting our breath? Debating in circles about things we might not be able to correctly back up?”
That’s why I don’t follow politics any more! Because when you get down to certain core ideas that are fundamental to a disagreement, there is often one simple but impossible-to-prove fact in question that would, if you or your opponent could work it out, end the argument immediately. A lot of constitution-related debates could be resolved easily if one dumb*** just did their homework. But what do we do with debates where we’re really not sure? How does a constitutionalist [or originalist] lawmaker know whether to listen to the NRA or gun-safety activists when there’s no way of empirically understanding the spirit of the 2nd amendment?
I think that’s my biggest gripe about originalism. It’s a lovely thing in principle, but it always leads to some really nasty quagmire of a debate. No matter what the Founding Fathers’ vision for America was, can’t we decide what is best for the country right now?
Apparently not. I am still confused about why it feels so important to some people to honor the vision of founders, or follow an existing precedent. Sort of like some people wonder what the big deal about The Beatles is, if you catch my drift. [I know! Blasphemy!]
Also. The article outlined originalism very well, and set it up against “constitutionalism”, but I’m still unclear about how exactly constitutionalism is different from originalism. Help?
I think Heather raised a fantastic point when she asked: "Is it wrong to go to rallies and riots without reading the full Constitution?" Though I have reason the Constitution several times and answered the true-or-false questions correctly, I'm a bit embarrassed that when I go to rallies or accuse something of unconstitutionality, I'm not always entirely sure to which part it pertains.
As several of you noted, the Constitution was written by and for white men. Consequently, it is incredibly inaccessible to the diversity of current citizens. Thus we are forced to ask the question: should the Constitution be changed in order to be more inclusive and accessible to the majority of citizens, or should it be the responsibility of individual citizens to educate themselves on the (confusing) Constitution. We do have one of the oldest Constitutions in the world and the majority has remained the same over the course of the last 230 something years. In other words, should we change a seemingly functional document for the exclusive purpose of trying to be more inclusive. Perhaps inclusiveness would even lead to unrest. Perhaps the beauty and functionality of the Constitution lies within it's retained elitism.
Though personally, I believe the beauty of the Constitution lies within it's range of legitimate interpretations. The author hits this right on the head when he postulates . "But originalism and constitutionalism are not the same, and the opposite of original is not unconstitution." (last page) While the original intent of the Constitution remains significant, one can argue the Constitution's was created to be a malleable document intended to be interpreted according to time-period and circumstance.
I was not surprised at the number of people who had read the constitution all the way through. It is simply not very relevant to most people except for historians and politicians. People in the U.S in general have a vague idea of how the government works, that there are checks and balances and we elect our leaders and that democracy is good. The reason that we know this and not the specifics is that this is what we are taught in school. It seems that in elementary school we were typical taught an idealised version of what the government was and we were not told about the specifics perhaps because it was not considered important compared to the other pro American propaganda that we learned or because it would take the government off of its idealised mantel to learn about the muddy details that would reveal its imperfections. Perhaps this seems overly paranoid to assume that our educations were that one sided but I had no idea how horrible Columbus was until I saw a show on PBS about it and think about how horrible the English were made to seem compared to our slaughter of Native Americans which was rarely touched on. So I am not surprised that most people do not go off and study these things on their own.
That said I also think that studying the constitution is not as important as the article makes it seem. We have all seen the problems with the original constitution and although a surprising amount is still in practice in the U.S much of it is not and it is much harder to understand than a modern approach to studying the government. I believe that it is mostly important as a historical document and because it is already so important. I would argue that the main reason to study the document is because of the immense respect that nearly every one has for it and the fact that to say something that opposes it is a near instant loss of a debate about any part of American politics.
I know that this post is not particularly well written as it was just a collection of my thoughts about the piece. I guess to sum up I would compare the Constitution to the Bible they are both old and believed to be truth although many of the people who say they love it have not actually read it. In my opinion however neither is truth and I believe that the impact that they are having on the world today is more important than what they said. The most important thing that sets the Constitution apart is that fact that it has been changed for the past 300 years to come closer to truth so the current system is more valuable than the first draft.
so, this article brought me back to a rather infuriating discussion I had with my father. The constitution was pretty righteous, in its bare-uninterpreted-bones (as much as thats possible, I think), especially when seen in opposition to a monarchy. There's division of power, some kind of badass civilian access to the military, and a real attempt at equal representation.
When our founding friends were trying to create a not-hierarchy, they had the right concepts in mind.
but somehow, in their totally badass democratic verging on democratic ideas, they just literally didn't even consider black people of either gender or women. How can something be so progressive and so completely blind simultaneously?
Well, apparently its obvious how that can happen. It did.
I think something I gathered from this article (which I'm sure someone will later shoot down) is the idea that something cannot be unconstitutional because of what the constitution didn't say. This reminds me of the excercise we did with the magna carta-- the magna carta doesn't outwardly prohibit things, it just says umbrella statements of what must be true. So, as we evolve as a nation what ever helps make those values true, must also be true.
And to make the case that the constitution can't evolve is ludicrous, because if the very tenants of the constitution (words on a page) ARE in fact words on a page, one must allow for the evolution of language. Thus, the evolution of the constitution.
oh, and wes, i'm not entirely sure if I understood what you were saying, but I believe the article was making the point that the quote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” does NOT appear in the preamble.
I was flabbergasted by how careless people were about preserving the original constitution. For example, " In the eighteen-twenties, when someone asked James Madison where it was, he had no idea."(page 2) After working so hard on writing the constitution for four months, it seemed confusing to me why they wouldn't take more care in protecting it. Especially because of it's historical importance.
I think it's interesting that the US constitution is one of the oldest constitutions/ first to be submitted to the people for their approval. Also that, " At some forty-four hundred words, not counting amendments, our constitution is one of the shortest in the world, but few Americans have read it." yikes. One of the main arguments throughout the article (for not reading the constitution) was that the text was too difficult to understand. I definitely don't think the text is easy to understand. However, I think as citizens of the US it's important and necessary to know what the constitution says. Whether one is aware of it or not, the constitution shapes his or her daily life.
If everyone read the constitution and it was taught in schools, each person could attempt to come to their own conclusions and/or interpretation of the text. I feel like many people go along with what others say about the constitution for whatever reason ( they aren't confident in the exact wording of the constitution to back up their ideas and thus are swayed by friends/family/what they've been taught to think, etc) I feel that if people took the time to read it themselves and at least tried to come up with their own conclusions, as a country we'd be better off. Additionally, I think people should read a variety of different texts that argue different ways to interpret the text. Then they could base their own understandings of the constitution and apply their knowledge to support or challenge someone else's interpretation. That way, people could have educated conversations about the constitution. I realize there are flaws in this idea but i just wanted to throw it out there.
I believe the greatest weakness (or strength) is the amount of interpretation in the constitution. In the end, I think what people think the constitution says matters much more than what it actually says. Jeremy summed it up nicely when he wrote, "While the original intent of the Constitution remains significant, one can argue the Constitution's was created to be a malleable document intended to be interpreted according to time-period and circumstance."
"The point of such surveys is that if more of us read the Constitution all of us would be better off, because we would demand that our elected officials abide by it, and we’d be able to tell when they weren’t doing so and punish them accordingly."
I thought this quote was incredibly interesting. When I listen to and/or participate in political discussions with peers, in class, or with my family, everyone argues for the laws and/or officials that serve them best. If, for instance, two people disagreed on a law that would ban abortions, each would vote for what they morally believed in. Niether person would go read the constitution and figure out if the law was constitutional or no. Same goes for people running to be in office, they gain support through giving the public what they want, not through proving that they alone follow the constitution most faithfully. Perhaps I am starting to ramble but I think there is something really important here. As a nation, most of us are not educated on the contents and meanings of the constitution nor do we as a people make our decisions based off of these founding principles. We base them off of our immediate needs, wants and moral stance.
This leads me into what the questions actually were. As far as what the constitution actually says, well very few people actually have a chance at figuring that out seeing as very few have read it. Also, the government does unconstitutional things all the time. I feel that the constitution has become unattainable because it doesn't refer to anyone other than the rich old white man and has lost its meaning in the eyes of the people. As this is supposedly a country where the people have power, most of us are using that power without any thought to the constitution many of the choices made within the country are not in the best interest of staying true to the constitution.
What I was very surprised about was the amount of care that went into preserving the constitution after it was signed, which was little to none! It even went missing an no one knew where it was during a long period of time! This shows how little the constitution meant to those of the United States. What also reflects this is the amount of people who read this constitution, which was close to a quarter of all the people that took a certain survey. Finally, states not teaching the constitution set it in stone that the constitution was not important to the population in the 1800's-early 1900's. It is insane that the document which is probably the most important to the United States and took 4 months of work and polishing was the most under-read and under-studied of all. And this all reflects on what people know about the constitution. Assumptions were made, such as that the constitution was written by white men, for white men, and yet the word "white" can never be found in the constitution. Another example of this is when Christian O'Donell asks Chris Coons if separation of church and state is in the constitution, and Chris Coons "quotes" the first amendment to prove that it was, he was wrong, and for some reason he still ended up winning the election. It seems that no matter what, the citizens of the United States will believe those who talk in a beneficial way to those citizens, unless what the speaker says something about the constitution that could hurt them.
However, in contrast to what people make out of the constitution, the constitution itself is not very specific in some places. This leaves room to twist and turn the constitution to benefit certain people who have the power to do so. So an argument could be made as such; it doesn't say white in the constitution, but it doesn't say black. And because the constitution was written by whites under a society that believed in slavery, then whites must be the dominate race. (I am no racist nor support slavery in any way)
It's hard to say whats better; what the constitution says or what people make out of it. The problem with both of those is that their are faults, and that there is always going to be a struggle with power and who can twist the words of the constitution to gain that power. We are, after all, only human.
In respond to Wesley, it is actually understandable that those three delegates refused to sign the constitution, in fact, I'm surprised there weren't more who didn't! Yes, the country was very much in need of a change/reform because of the condition it was in, but they also did not want to lose power. No one does, its a common human error that flaws us. Creating the branches would only make it near impossible to pass certain laws that they would benefit from
Joined: 29 Mar 2011 Posts: 2 Location: United States
Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 9:20 pm Post subject: Re: The New Yorker, April 5
Heather Lipkin wrote:
While it is shocking to read that a mere 72% of a thousand people surveyed had never read the Constitution in its entirety, I very much believe this to be true. Despite the large percentage of citizens who have not read the whole Constitution, I think it is true that most of us consider it to be one of the main documents that shape our daily lives..
I actually was surprised that it wasn't a higher percentage that hadn't read the constitution entirely. I totally agree that most people consider it to be a very important document in our lives. I also believe that many people take our constitutional rights for granted, they probably wouldn't though, if they actually sat down and read the thing! (haha) It says in the reading that it's one of the shorter constitutions in the world!
Although it is short however, the constitution is pretty hard to understand (for me at least). Maybe this puts people off from reading the entire thing...the average person doesn't understand some of the wording in it.
As almost everybody has mentioned so far, I am surprised. From the 72% not having read the Constitution, the know-nothing rate, the three delegates that refused to sign the Constitution, the confusion between the Constitution and other historical documents, and the drastic differences of opinions. This article makes it very clear that most of the United States hasn't read or doesn't understand the Constitution. "because the charge that the constitution is to difficult for ordinary people to understand". (Lepore, pg 4) Then how is it that 86% of those polled claimed that the Constitution has an impact on their daily lives? "70% of boys and 75% of girls answered false to this statement: A citizen of the United States should be allowed to say anything he pleases, even if to advocate violent revolution, if he does not act violent himself" (Lepore, pg 7). That is stated directly in the first amendment and they use that right everyday, how could they claim it false? Probably because for 71 years California was the only state that was required to be taught in school. And it was aimed for law students. I can see why government today is so rocky. The people in our country are arguing over things they never really learned. The text mentioned a debate where one party was flabbergasted when their question 'where in the constitution is the separation of church and state?' was answered by 'It is in the first amendment'; the phrase"separation of church and state" is not in the Constitution or its amendments. As a person who has read the Constitution a few times over, and was in a fantasy land thinking everyone else did too, I am overwhelmed at the lack of information our country has.
The idea that conservatives uphold the constitution while liberals have to fend off accusations of "unconstitutionality". This seems like a counter-intuitive situation to me. The Constitution was viewed as being impossible and new and a bad idea, now we uphold it as the ideal past. The spirit of those making the Constitution was an intent of changing the present to make it better. What has happened, and what can be done to correct it, which made the Constitution the ammunition for conservative groups?
I look at the Constitution as an attempt to create a system which would adapt to change and unexpected situations (such as the internet). What can be done to allow both liberal and conservative groups use this foundation for our nation in their efforts?
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