In a comment to his post on Sarah Palin, Sheldon Richman writes:

I don’t see that it’s obvious that the Supreme Court has been dishonest about the Constitution. It was written as a deliberately vague document designed to satisfy multiple interests. It’s very much an inkblot. Madison said it contained “few and defined” powers, yet he also endorsed the doctrine of implied powers. Let’s get real. The Constitution was the result of a virtual coup intended to overthrow the Articles of Confederation. The feeling among the movers in Philadelphia was that there was too little central government, not too much; too little protectionism, not too much. I don’t understand the constitutional sentimentalism among some libertarians. As Spooner said, the Constitution either authorized the government we have or was powerless to prevent it. Constitutions don’t interpret or enforce themselves. People do, thus the rule of law is always the rule of men. Protection of freedom will not come from constitutions or “limited” Leviathans but from competition.