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Why Does the Constitution Still Work for Us? 5721 Views
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Description:
Ever heard of a "living document"? They eat and breathe just like the rest of us! They even walk around on their own two legs. Okay, fine—maybe that's not the exact definition.
- Texas EOC / U.S. History EOC Assessment
- U.S. History EOC Assessment / History
- Reading Informational Text / Analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance
- Reading Informational Text / Analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance
- Reading Informational Text / Reasoning in seminal U.S. texts for both legal purposes and public advocacy
- Reading Informational Text / Analyze seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century foundational U.S. documents of historical and literary significance
Transcript
- 00:04
Why Does the Constitution Still Work for Us? a la Shmoop.
- 00:08
Hold on a second. So there's this document that was written hundreds of years ago...
- 00:12
back when people wore powdered wigs and rode horses to work...
- 00:15
...and yet somehow it's still supposed to apply to us today? How does that work?
- 00:22
Well, granted, there have been a number of modifications added to the Constitution over
Full Transcript
- 00:26
the years to reflect the changing of the times...
- 00:28
...but essentially it remains the foundation of our country's most cherished principles.
- 00:33
Why haven't we thrown this baby out with the bathwater? Let's take a good, hard look at it...
- 00:39
First and most importantly, we needed some
- 00:42
way to organize our government. It couldn't just be a bunch of random lawmakers running
- 00:46
around, posting new laws on tree trunks.
- 00:49
We needed a system... and a pecking order. The Constitution created an innovative separation
- 00:55
of powers... with judicial, legislative and executive branches...
- 01:01
...the last of which includes the President and Vice President. The big cheese... and
- 01:05
second cheese in command. The limburger, if you will.
- 01:12
Now, if you hadn't noticed, we still have the same set-up today.
- 01:16
Why haven't we given it up for dead? Well... it's nice to have one overall leader -- someone
- 01:21
to lead us, inspire us and guide us.
- 01:24
At the same time, our President isn't a dictator who can suddenly, on a whim, decree
- 01:28
that we all must start wearing pink from head to toe.
- 01:32
So we have the comfort of knowing that the head honcho in the White House is looking out for us...
- 01:36
...but he's also got plenty of help from people with quite a bit of power themselves
- 01:39
to keep him in check.
- 01:43
And that's a system that's got some staying power.
- 01:47
Now on to those "modifications" we mentioned.
- 01:49
Our forefathers imagined that some stuff might come up that they couldn't account for...
- 01:54
...so they instituted an amendment process, where the Constitution could be altered as
- 01:59
long as 2/3 of the House and Senate, and 3/4 of the states, were on board.
- 02:04
Women and many minorities are big fans of this one.
- 02:12
The Constitution's writers also suspected that it might be helpful to have some...
- 02:16
flexible definitions.
- 02:18
"Cruel and unusual punishment," for example, is pretty subjective.
- 02:24
For some people, that could mean waterboarding.
- 02:26
For someone else, it could mean a week without television.
- 02:32
"High crimes and misdemeanors" is kinda vague, too.
- 02:35
Originally, a president could only be impeached for treason and bribery...
- 02:42
...but nowadays, you can just about be impeached for wearing unshined shoes.
- 02:48
By allowing certain stuff to be redefined over time, the framers of the Constitution
- 02:52
ensured that the document could apply to future generations... and not only to their own.
- 02:57
Another major concern of our nation's founders was that we would... well... turn into our father.
- 03:02
They didn't want any tyrannical kings like back in the old days, so they decided to add
- 03:06
a few nifty features that would guard against oppression.
- 03:10
They added a Bill of Rights... the first 10 amendments.
- 03:13
They gave us many of our most valued rights, like freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
- 03:18
and freedom of wearing our pants around our knees.
- 03:21
To protect against any one part of the government having too much power, they created a system
- 03:26
of checks and balances...
- 03:28
...which kept everybody... balanced and in check. It allowed a President to veto a law...
- 03:35
...but a 2/3 vote from Congress could overturn a veto...
- 03:38
...and the Supreme Court could declare any of Congress' legislation unconstitutional.
- 03:43
It was like all three branches each held a third of a treasure map...
- 03:46
...so no one could get their hands on the entire treasure without the cooperation of the others.
- 03:53
Congress was further divided into a bicameral, or 2-housed, legislature...
- 03:57
...consisting of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
- 04:01
Those guys keep each other in check... although how well they do that is open for debate.
- 04:06
The creation of these two houses was known as the "Great Compromise."
- 04:10
Looking back on it today, it might have also been called the "Only Compromise."
- 04:15
Anyway, the Compromise took the two proposed plans... the Virginia Plan, which favored
- 04:19
giving more representation to large states, and the New Jersey Plan, which would give
- 04:23
more representation to small states...
- 04:25
...and met them both in the middle. We've changed quite a lot since the Constitution
- 04:29
was first drafted, but the concept of Federalism...
- 04:32
...in which the Federal Government wields most of the power, but still grants a significant
- 04:36
amount of power to the states...
- 04:37
...has served us well over the years.
- 04:40
For that we can thank the 9th Amendment, which gave the states control of anything not specifically
- 04:45
designated for the federal government. And so, with all these rules and precautions in place...
- 04:50
...we've been able to keep the Constitution working for us, even with all our modern-day
- 04:54
gizmos and gadgets...
- 04:55
...and extreme changes in culture and philosophy.
- 04:58
And if other stuff comes up in the future that we aren't expecting...
- 05:03
...well, we'll just continue to amend the heck out of it.
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