I am currently reading, and greatly enjoying, a book by Ray Raphael titled “Constitutional Myths”. It looks at various beliefs many if not most Americans hold about the Constitution, its creation, and the founders and evaluates how much truth there are to these beliefs –Taxes, Politics, Principles, etc. It generally finds a kernel of truth, or has so far, but finds that for the most part these myths do not hold up well to the reality.

Now, having read quite a bit about the origin of our Constitution, I knew, in broad outlines at least, a great deal of this information. But this book is providing a great deal more details and also puts it together in ways that made me more aware of things that in my previous readings I had just passed on by.

Given our current political climate, I thought a few comments on these might be of interest.

First and foremost – the Constitution was a compromise from beginning to end. I doubt that there were any of its writers who were satisfied and happy with it. Madison, Washington, Hamilton, and others have written letters stating this. Gouverneur Morris said that although he continued to have serious objections to this plan he would “take it with all its faults”. This was a common refrain.

Next, was the sheer amount of politics involved in this – politics at its worse. We often portray the founders are dealing solely with great principles of government and being guided by reason and a concern for what is best for all. However, the reality is that while that was partly the basis of their deliberations there was an equal, if not more, amount of self-interest, regional politics, and political wheeling and dealing and bluster. Issues such as how to best ensure representation for both small and large states, slavery, and other issues almost scuttled the whole process many times. In fact, the vitriol and rancor involved in these deliberations was probably almost as great as what we see today in Congress. Their saving grace though was a willingness to make a deal and compromise.

In fact, the electoral college was one of those comprises between intransigent groups. It was mainly between those small states who wanted one state one vote and the larger states who wanted votes based upon a state’s population, What I found interesting in this is that they also tossed in the House being the only one who could initiate money bills – something that had been defeated in an earlier vote establishing the Great Compromise on the Senate and House representation. This was tossed in to sweeten the deal for the larger states so that they would buy off on a Presidential election system that somewhat favored the smaller states. Today too many are willing to stand totally on principle and then condemn those who would work to find compromises.



Also, in light of how many are touting state’s rights and pointing back to the founders, I found it interesting how many of them not only were not strong supporters of state’s rights but also saw them as a danger to the nation. Madison and Washington (along with one other delegate whose name escapes me right now) before the convention had corresponded about some ideas of what should go into a new Constitution. One such idea was that the national government should have the power to review laws passed by the states and veto them if they found them inappropriate. At the end of the convention both Madison and Washington still considered the lack of such a mechanism a great flaw in the Constitution.

In fact, Madison was against the Great Compromise that had the House being set by a state’s population whereas the Senate had each state equally represented regardless of population, and argued strongly against it. “Whatever reason might have existed for the quality of suffrage when the Union was a federal one among sovereign States, it must cease when a national Government should be put into the place.”

Another point that was made was that taxes were the reason for the Constitutional convention and was one of the main motives for the creation of the Constitution. To be clearer, it was the necessity for the national government to have the strong ability to tax and raise revenue. After seeing the results of trying to create a functional government under the Articles of Confederation and knowing how vital a sure revenue stream was for good government, the lack of such was a major failure of that government and a major reason for the convening of the Constitutional Convention.

Finally, although I have not gotten to the chapter about Originalism, what I have read so far just reinforces my own thoughts from prior readings – the idea that we can interpret the Constitution based on what the founders originally thought is balderdash.

First, the word “founders” presupposes that all or most of the founders thought the same way and agreed. They most assuredly did not. As I mentioned, the Constitution was a compromise document in which most had serious reservations on at least part of its provisions (which part varied by person). Further, as soon as the Constitution was ratified and started to be applied to specific issues of the day you would find the writers of that Constitution lined up on opposite sides of almost each and every issue. If those at the convention who wrote and signed the Constitution together could not agree on how to understand and apply it, what chance does discerning original intent today have?

To make this even more complicated, thoughts about the Constitution and how to interpret and apply it changed over time. For example, Madison’s thoughts from just after the ratification of the Constitution and his thoughts at the end of his life about the interpretation of the constitution changed. So too, did many others.

Given that our founders did not speak with a unified voice and their thoughts and ideas on the Constitution also changed over time, the idea of discerning original intent seems more of a chimera than a rational and realistic approach. It will be interesting to see what Raphael has to say at the end of the book.

For those Americans who are interested in the origins of or constitution “Constitutional Myths” is not a bad place to start. I know I am greatly looking forwards to finishing this book.