From 86bc665cff01eb04847bc5e440a9e16f08d8cb1e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Holden Rohrer Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2020 10:33:13 -0400 Subject: read some stuff for Rich --- rich/09_american_constitutionalism | 46 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 46 insertions(+) create mode 100644 rich/09_american_constitutionalism (limited to 'rich/09_american_constitutionalism') diff --git a/rich/09_american_constitutionalism b/rich/09_american_constitutionalism new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a92c07 --- /dev/null +++ b/rich/09_american_constitutionalism @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +FDR during a fireside chat recommended the American public to read and +reread the constitution. + +Its language isn't particularly complex, but it is often deliberately +ambiguous and increasingly settled by jurisprudence and precedence. +Its context sometimes helps clear things up: +- Notes kept by Constitutional Convention participants +- Federalist papers +- Correspondences of delegates and leaders +- Anti-Federalist tracts + +Believed deeply in political theory +- Social contract, government by the consent of the governed +- Legitimacy for self-government from constitution +- Wanted civil liberty (freedom except detriment to common weal) +- Used written constitutions to ensure consent of governed + +Even anti-federalists were committed to republicanism and personal +liberty. +Both sides accepted political science and the multiple interests in +government and the importance of preserving public opinion. +Anti-federalists feared the absence of a bill of rights, "unrestrained +power," and the possible development of an aristocracy, that helped make +the Constitution a good compromise. + +- Happiness an important factor +Social contract: + - People govern the people + - Didn't want to be "enslaved" by the British (Lockean analogy) + - Actual slavery was a huge compromise + - When James Madison's sealed notes released after 50 years, + (1788+50 -> 1840) it was revealed that huge compromises were + made for SC and GA. + +American Constitution is oldest national constitution in the world. +- Essentially an usurpation of authority by the Phil. Convention +- Incredibly stable, not even second convention because of worries about + weakening it + - Permanent in the minds of citizens + - State constitutions, by contrast, are unstable, long, and lightly + changed +- Ambiguities that were left in constitution -> judicial leeway (room + for much more fluid changes than a constitutional amendment) +- Tested by constitutional crisis of 1860 (civil war/secession) + +Democratic constitutionalism implies concerted effort of the citizens. -- cgit