Every American has been given a sacred gift. It’s called the Constitution of the United States of America.
Apparently, not many of us read it. While pollsters find it difficult to develop exact numbers, they do try to gets some sense of the level of knowledge Americans have. The results have not been encouraging.
A 2019 poll taken by Marquette University Law School, for example, found that around 43% of adult Americans say they’ve read the Constitution. We also know that of those who say they’ve read it, most remember few details about it.
I keep a copy on my desk, and so this week I decided to take the brief time it takes to read it in one sitting.
It truly is a stunning document whose brilliance I think is why it has lasted for 250 years as the legal and moral foundation of our country.
But Trump doesn’t believe that. In fact, he believes he knows better how our government should run, which is why he continues to ignore and circumvent the Constitution at every turn.
The beautiful thing is, the Constitution is not going to allow him to get away with it. It stands in the way of his becoming the totalitarian leader he wants to be.
Take, for example, his hinting that he plans to figure out a way to run for a third term. He won’t, not only because he’s too old and feeble minded, but because there is no wiggle room in the 22nd Amendment.
It says plainly: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
End of story. No exceptions. No loop holes. Two terms and he’s done.
Another example is Trump’s insistence on imposing tariffs. Not only is it stupid economic policy, it is unconstitutional. Article 1, Section 8 says: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises…” Duties and Imposts are old terms for tariffs which are simply taxes on imported and exported goods.
In addition to these unconstitutional actions Trump has taken is his persistent attempts to exert control over our elections in o4rder to help himself in the mid-terms. Here, again, though, the Constitution is beating back those attempts through judges telling him that the Constitution says he has no role in elections.
Article 1, Section 4 says, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof…” Congress “may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.”
The last statement is why Trump wants Congress to pass his “Save Act.” He knows he cannot grab the control he wants on his own. Yet, he keeps trying by issuuing Executive Orders that have been and will continue to be ruled unconstitutional.
Something else I found interesting in reading the Constitution is how it exposes misinformation being perpetrated by well-intended journalists and bloggers who are warning that Republican Speaker Mike Johnson may well refused to seat the new Congress on January 3 should Democrats win control of the House.
That will not happen. Article 1, Section 5 declares that “…each House shall be the Judge of Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own members.” The 20th Amendment adds even more clarification: “…the terms of Senators and Representatives [shall end] at noon on the 3rd day of January.”
In other words, on January 3, 2027, the Clerk of the previous session will call the House to order, conduct a roll call of new members to establish a quorum, oversee the election of the Speaker, and then swear in the members-elect.
In regard to Trump’s efforts to nullify birthright citizenship. Section 1 of the 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” (SC also affirmed birthright citizenship last June).
The 14th Amendment also protects our right to due process, declaring that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Important to notice is that it states clearly that any person has the right to due process, regardless of immigration status.
But it may be what the Constitution says about presidential immunity that is more important than anything else because of the Supreme Court ruling in 2024 granting it to Trump.
Here’s the thing. The Constitution says absolutely nothing about presidential immunity. Nothing. Which means the six conservatives on the Supreme Court created it based on inferences instead of actual text.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson saw right through what they did and wrote that as a result of this decision, “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law. This majority’s project will have disastrous consequences for the Presidency and for our democracy.”
Constitutional scholars across the political agree with the minority’s dissent, many of whom argue that this decision alone justifies Democrats expanding the number of justices should they control the Congress and the White House in 2028. (As a footnote, the number has fluctuated over time, 6 justices initially, then 5, then 6 again, then 7, then 10, and in 1869 set at 9 where it has remained.)
But…amid gaining important knowledge on all these critical facts we are facing, and many more besides, I want to suggest that the most important reason for reading the Constitution is its amazing inspirational power.
I think all of us can use a little inspiration right now, and I promise that as soon as you begin reading The Preamble you will feel it. We might even call it the Constitution’s hidden power.
“We, the People,” it declares, meaning the citizens of the new nation were forming their own government, something that was unprecedented and unlike anything else that had ever existed before.
This, I believe, is the meaning and justification for the concept of American exceptionalism.
We, the people, are not exceptional, but our form of government wherein citizens are the arbiters of their own fate is.
By bringing the colonies together into a more perfect union, the founders believed the nee nation would be able to “to ensure domestic tranquility, establish justice, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare of every citizen.”
And then they ended the Preamble with the stunning words that the ultimate goal of the new nation was “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
I cannot imagine anyone reading the Constitution and not seeing the utter genius of the founders in devising an unprecedented form of government, and to do it in such intricate detail.
We know they were not perfect in their views of equality, or their understanding of who would be citizens, or who would actually enjoy the blessings of freedom.
But they made the Constitution amendable to allow future generations to improve on it, make it better, make it more consistent with its stated ideals.
And that is what Americans have done ever since. “We, the people,” have been laboring to expand the blessings of liberty for every American regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin, to establish equality before the law to everyone’s benefit.
This is why American exceptionalism is real, why America is a light shining around the world. As a people we are flawed as everyone else is, but our form of government is truly exceptional.
If you read the Constitution for yourself I am confident you will think so as well.
linnposts.com 