I love the United States Constitution. It is not perfect, but I think it and the principles that underlie it have helped our country to flourish and allowed our people to live more freely than just about any other people in world history. Sometimes, I assume that most people are as big of fans of government and political science as I am and so understand and appreciate the Constitution as much as I do. In talking to friends and family, I am regularly reminded that this is not true.

I will explain some key basics about what the Constitution is and is not and what it does and does not do. In doing so, I hope you will come to appreciate the Constitution and have some more context for some of the fights we have about our federal government. Additionally, I hope it may persuade you that we the people have let our government violate the words and intent of our Constitution to the detriment of our country.

How did we end up with the Constitution?

In the beginning, the King of England gave authority to certain individuals or entities to sail to America to establish colonies in his name. Additionally, some fled England for religious reasons to set up new communities in America. Each of these colonies and communities would be or become part of England with the ultimate authority to rule them eventually belonging to the King and the rest of the English government. Each of these colonies would develop its own local government to govern while still being beholden to the laws and decisions of the King and government back in England.

Over many years, the colonies gradually developed their own culture and identity that began to diverge slightly from that of their fellow countrymen back in England. Eventually, many government officials and people in the colonies began to resent the King and government back in England for not being reasonable toward the colonies and not allowing the colonies enough say in lawmaking. This eventually culminated in the colonies' governments banding together and declaring in 1776 that they were now independent from England.

After the Revolutionary War that followed, the colonies became truly independent from England; however, were they a unified country or 13 new, separate countries (i.e., states)? After all, each state had its own government, including its own laws, as well as its own similar but separate cultural identities.

Eventually, the states agreed to form a confederation. They wrote some laws called the Articles of Confederation. These laid out some rules for how they would function together, while leaving them mostly separate and each able to govern most of their affairs. This...did not go well.

As a result, in 1787, delegates from most of the 13 states gathered in Philadelphia ostensibly to fix the Articles of Confederation. They ended up tossing it out, secretly drafting a brand new constitution, and headed home to persuade their state governments to formally adopt it. Eventually, the states did adopt it, and the United States Constitution came to be.

What is the Constitution and What Does it Do?

The Constitution is a relatively short document that explains that the states have united to establish a central government that will make decisions and exercise power on behalf of all 13 states for some limited purposes. The idea was that this central (i.e., federal) government would start from a fairly unique position.

Where most governments, like that in each state or the King of England, were thought of as having plenary (i.e., absolute or unlimited) authority, subject to whatever specific restrictions or delegations were gradually developed and hammered out, this federal government would be one of only enumerated powers. In other words, it would have the authority specifically outlined in the Constitution and nothing more. In the areas the Constitution gave the federal government authority, its authority would be supreme, and the state governments would not be allowed to contradict it. For anything the Constitution did not specifically say the federal government could do, all authority would remain with the states or the people themselves.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, this most important principle has gradually been eroded for more than two centuries as the people have forgotten it, and the federal government has improperly taken more and more authority for itself.

Divided Authority - Check and Balances

For many of our founding fathers, a federal government of limited, enumerated powers was still too big of a threat to the freedoms and self-governance of the American people. These founding fathers were worried the federal government would quickly seize and exercise more and more authority outside of what they intended for it to have. In their experience, and in the thousands of years of world history many of the founders had studied, power tended to centralize and increase, which usually led to more oppression and less freedom. Additionally, some of the other founding fathers favored a very strong federal government or even having an American king.

So, when designing the Constitution, the founding fathers divided the federal government's authority among three separate divisions (i.e., branches) of government. The legislative (Congress), the executive (the President), and the judicial (the Supreme Court and lesser courts). This would make it harder for one person or group of persons to consolidate and grow their power, particularly as humans' natural, greedy lust for power would cause those in each branch to police and restrain those in the others. Further, there were explicit mechanisms added to the Constitution by which the branches could limit (check and balance) each other (such as the President's veto, Congress's veto override, impeachment, etc.).

One branch, Congress, would do most of the heavy lifting. It would have most of the authority to make laws and decide how the country's money would be spent. In order to keep this branch from gobbling up too much authority and becoming oppressive, it was further divided into a House of Representatives and a Senate, with dozens (hundreds today) of members in total. The two houses of Congress would have to act together for Congress to act.

To further protect the States and the people from Congress, the members of each house would be selected differently with significant input directly from the people and their local representatives. The people would directly elect representatives to represent their local geographic area in the House every two years, and each State's legislature would select two Senators to serve for six years. Every two years, 1/3 of of the Senators' terms would expire.

The President, and the officials he appointed and hired to assist him, seemed most analogous to the King of England, so the founders granted him limited authority. He would play a small part in creating laws. His main job would be making sure that the laws created by Congress would be put into effect. And if he committed serious enough crimes or missteps, Congress could give him the boot (impeachment). He was also put in charge of the nation's military; however, only Congress could start a war.

Interestingly, the president would be selected not by the people, not by state legislatures, but by a gathering of people locally appointed from each state, further spreading the competing interests for exercising the federal government's power. The founding fathers imagined that each state would select some local people (electors) who they knew and trusted to be knowledgeable and wise. Each state's electors would gather every four years all together (as a college of electors) to wisely discuss and choose who should be the president. There would be no national popularity contest among the ignorant masses. This...has not panned out, but I believe the idea was virtuous.

Last, the judiciary was essentially charged with interpreting the Constitution and resolving legal disputes between the states and disputes under the laws passed by Congress. It would have to rely on the other two branches and the states to comply with and carry out its decisions.

The Bill of Rights

And yet, this was still not enough for many of the founding fathers. Several, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison believed we needed to further restrain the federal government by setting out some fundamental rights in the Constitution. The federal government would be severely prohibited or limited in how it could affect these rights. The founding fathers packaged together a list of 12 changes (amendments) to immediately be made to the new Constitution (according to rules in the Constitution for making amendments) that (mostly) set out core fundamental rights. Ten of these 12 amendments were soon adopted by the states and thereby incorporated into the Constitution. It came to be known as the Bill of Rights.

A Glorified Piece of Paper

The Constitution sets out basic rules for how our federal government is to be structured, what it can do, and some specific limits on its power. Yet, the Constitution is not some inviolable, supernatural law. There is no super king or president to descend from the heavens and enforce it against elected representatives and government officials. It is ultimately ideas and words on paper. Special ideas and words, to be sure, but ideas and words nonetheless.

I am reminded of a term used by James Madison, founding father, our fourth president, and writer of the Bill of Rights, at multiple points in debating the Constitution: "parchment barriers." Madison was one of the writers of the Federalist Papers. These were a series of essays written by prominent political figures explaining the Constitution and arguing that the states should adopt it.

He explained in Federalist #48 that it is not enough to simply write how the branches should remain separate. To truly constrain officials into their proper lanes, he argued, we need to interconnect the separate branches with checks and balances, which was the Constitution ultimately provided.

I would argue that this was not enough. To some degree, these interconnections and these checks and balances are still merely words on paper. Ultimately, the people must understand what the Constitution is and is supposed to do and hold elected federal officials accountable. If we come to think that part of the document is flawed, we should amend it to fix the flaws. I would argue that the people have abdicated their duties and even amended the Constitution to make things worse.

It is time for the people to wake up to their responsibilities; recognize, understand, and enforce the intended roles of the different branches of federal government; and amend the Constitution to fix problems with it or to dramatically change it altogether. What we have now with a president who disregards the limits on his authority and a Congress that is all too happy to let him is unsustainable.