notion: The men who wrote the Constitution included the special feature of
malleability.
If the pronouncements and laws of the American government didn’t altogetherwork for the people, why then, the people could change those laws with the help of their representatives.
Of seventeen proposed amendments to the Constitution, ten were ultimately approved by Congress and the states. These amendments were written precautions on behalf of the citizenry to safeguard individual liberties and place specific indispensable limits on government power.
There has been a lot of talk in this chapter about the “rights” of “the people,” and I just want to take a moment to remind us that at this juncture, “the people” referred quite specifically to white people who happened to bear a penis and testicles, which excluded “people” like women and minorities. I’m of the opinion that the crafters of the Constitution were all too aware of the conundrum in which they found themselves. I again refer to the duplicitous task of setting down the “God-given rights” of the individual in an era when a great deal of the economy was largely dependent upon the use of slave labor. I should think that this particular moral pickle played an important part in the motion to make these documents “correctable.” I would liken the situation to the modern dilemma regarding our voracious consumption of fossil fuels. By now we as a society have grown painfully aware that we are damaging our land and water and air
irreparably
via the extraction of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, as well as by the generous amounts of resultant waste products with which we pollute the planet, yet we continue to simply shrug, grin, and doggedly drive our monster trucks across the continent, whining to our mommies if we’re unable to view the latest Disney fare on a TV screen in the backseat.
We’ll discuss more of that later, but the new American United States found themselves in just such a state of denial. It had dawned on the more enlightened members of the early legislation that perhaps these Africans who had been captured and sold like mules, and who were now being employed similarly like beasts of the field, bore an awfully uncanny resemblance to human beings. Really, it began to seem like these creatures from Africa were like human beings in damn near every way except for their darker skin pigmentation. Unfortunately, the notion of including these two-legged “commodities” of the slave-labor system in the greater discussion of human rights was utterly unthinkable, since the larger part of the economy, particularly in the then most populous state, Virginia, was utterly reliant upon this labor force to keep their tobacco, cotton, and other crops profitable.
If Madison had possessed the foresight to suggest that black people be included in this discussion of inalienable rights, he would likely have been taken out back and shot, presumed rabid or dangerously daft. Therefore, since he couldn’t begin to address the massively looming issues of civil rights, he did the next best thing. He punted. Correctly predicting that our nation would grow and prosper at an astonishing rate, Madison and his collaborators equipped this new national owner’s manual with a correctability, as though to say, “I know there will be some problems that we couldn’t get to in this initial Constitution, impressive though it may be, and so among its attributes will be its ability to be
amended
as time and progress require.”
The Bill of Rights was an astonishing innovation for its time. The first ten amendments were an extremely effective security blanket that allowed the people to feel like their well-being was on the mindof the administration, which was a great way to get the people to vote for said administration. Some of the amendments are rather drier than others, or outdated at the least, since they had to do with our nation being at war on our
home
malleability.
If the pronouncements and laws of the American government didn’t altogetherwork for the people, why then, the people could change those laws with the help of their representatives.
Of seventeen proposed amendments to the Constitution, ten were ultimately approved by Congress and the states. These amendments were written precautions on behalf of the citizenry to safeguard individual liberties and place specific indispensable limits on government power.
There has been a lot of talk in this chapter about the “rights” of “the people,” and I just want to take a moment to remind us that at this juncture, “the people” referred quite specifically to white people who happened to bear a penis and testicles, which excluded “people” like women and minorities. I’m of the opinion that the crafters of the Constitution were all too aware of the conundrum in which they found themselves. I again refer to the duplicitous task of setting down the “God-given rights” of the individual in an era when a great deal of the economy was largely dependent upon the use of slave labor. I should think that this particular moral pickle played an important part in the motion to make these documents “correctable.” I would liken the situation to the modern dilemma regarding our voracious consumption of fossil fuels. By now we as a society have grown painfully aware that we are damaging our land and water and air
irreparably
via the extraction of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, as well as by the generous amounts of resultant waste products with which we pollute the planet, yet we continue to simply shrug, grin, and doggedly drive our monster trucks across the continent, whining to our mommies if we’re unable to view the latest Disney fare on a TV screen in the backseat.
We’ll discuss more of that later, but the new American United States found themselves in just such a state of denial. It had dawned on the more enlightened members of the early legislation that perhaps these Africans who had been captured and sold like mules, and who were now being employed similarly like beasts of the field, bore an awfully uncanny resemblance to human beings. Really, it began to seem like these creatures from Africa were like human beings in damn near every way except for their darker skin pigmentation. Unfortunately, the notion of including these two-legged “commodities” of the slave-labor system in the greater discussion of human rights was utterly unthinkable, since the larger part of the economy, particularly in the then most populous state, Virginia, was utterly reliant upon this labor force to keep their tobacco, cotton, and other crops profitable.
If Madison had possessed the foresight to suggest that black people be included in this discussion of inalienable rights, he would likely have been taken out back and shot, presumed rabid or dangerously daft. Therefore, since he couldn’t begin to address the massively looming issues of civil rights, he did the next best thing. He punted. Correctly predicting that our nation would grow and prosper at an astonishing rate, Madison and his collaborators equipped this new national owner’s manual with a correctability, as though to say, “I know there will be some problems that we couldn’t get to in this initial Constitution, impressive though it may be, and so among its attributes will be its ability to be
amended
as time and progress require.”
The Bill of Rights was an astonishing innovation for its time. The first ten amendments were an extremely effective security blanket that allowed the people to feel like their well-being was on the mindof the administration, which was a great way to get the people to vote for said administration. Some of the amendments are rather drier than others, or outdated at the least, since they had to do with our nation being at war on our
home
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