Remember How It Was
UPDATE: Richard Brookhiser seems to agree with me over at the Corner.
The Constitutional Convention that gave the United States its framework document opened after a delay on May 25, 1787. The final draft was signed September 17, 1787, four months later. It was ratified June 21, 1788, by New Hampshire which gave it the necessary number of states to take effect. The first ten amendments, our Bill of Rights, was not even added to the Constitution until December 1791, three years after the Constitution itself was ratified.
Their great debates involved the issues of the time:
- balancing the rights of the large, populous states with the smaller, less populous ones
- slavery, for census purposes, for tax purposes, and, in the end, the abolishment of importation
- the right of suffrage, for freeholders or for all men
- citizenship for immigrants
And there was much more. Here are a few resources:
Debates by date [use the time line to locate specific debates]
Now that I have you thinking, let’s talk about Iraq. Here is a nation that for over thirty years was ruled by a criminal clique, and which suffered every sort of despotism. The thugs who ran the country used all of the natural divisions, language, nationality, religion, economic status, to divide and rule the people of Iraq. They have no recent history of self-rule. To a great extent, all they know is what they’ve heard from their masters, and those who would assume the place of their former masters.
The Iraqis agreed to write a new constitution in the period May 4 through August 22. That’s at least two weeks less than it took the United States. They, too, have their issues. The document that they arrive at may only be as perfect as our original one was. Remember, the Bill of Rights came later for us. It’s already in the Iraqi draft. They’re working hard, with much more limited resources and experience than our Founding Fathers had.
Our Constitution begins:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Note that our goal was a more perfect Union, not perfection. Let’s hold the Iraqis to that standard, and no more. Let’s hold them to the standard that Franklin, Madison and Washington were held to.
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