When I was in college, I had an idea that was so profound that, even now, I find it hard to believe that I actually had it, but I did.
The situation was this: back in the day, Oberlin College had a graduate school of theology, with a wonderful old library, of some 50,000 volumes. I walked in there one day, and had my thought: “This library is its own refutation.”
Why? Because if it takes 25,000 authors (give or take) to explain the Word of God, it isn’t the Word of God. God should be able to speak for Himself, shouldn’t he?
Fortunately, one thing the U.S. is light on is theology, but, naturally, we have an equally tedious substitute, constitutional law. A recent volume—one of 100,000, surely—claiming to explain what the Constitution really—really, really—means is Timothy Sandefur’s The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty.
Sandefur’s book is being puffed by that eminent puffball, George F. “F for Fatuous” Will, who has a thing for dumb books about the Constitution. According to George, the essence of Tim’s pitch is that the meaning of the Constitution has to be determined in light of the Declaration of Independence, even though the Constitution, shockingly, makes no reference to that document. But, whatever. Tim’s on a roll, and George is rolling with him. As George explains,
Sandefur “proves” his argument about the intent of the framers by pointing to such things as the 14th amendment and other events that took place after all the framers were, well, dead. He also fails to note that Thomas Jefferson, who, you know, wrote the Declaration of Independence, thought the Constitution was pretty much a pain in the ass, and heartily disliked the right-wing judicial activism that is clearly Sandefur and Will’s continuing wet dream—the sort of dream peculiar to those who find they can no longer dream of winning elections..
In actual fact, even right-wing cranks like Scalia and Thomas are smart enough to know that they can’t rip up the federal statute book just because they don’t like what it says. The only two things you really need to know about the Constitution are these: “The Constitution says what the Supreme Court says it says” and “The Supreme Court follows the elections returns”.
Afterwords
We have had, really, three Constitutions. The “Washington Constitution” ran from 1788 until 1860, when, for four years, major decisions were made, not by legislative majorities and court decisions, but rather, as Bismarck would have it, by iron and blood. The “Lincoln Constitution,” which exalted “liberty” over democracy, ran from 1865 until 1933, felled, of course, by the Great Depression. From 1936 until the present, we have had the “Roosevelt Constitution.” Under the Roosevelt Constitution, we have defeated both fascism and communism. We have made significant headway in erasing the effects of our primal sin of racism. We have stumbled our way through the “Great Contraction” by largely Rooseveltian means, and now find ourselves to be once more the possessors of what is easily the world’s largest and healthiest economy. There is no replacement for the Roosevelt Constitution on the horizon, because there is not the slightest need for one.
