The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

The Importance and Significance of our Constitutional Governance

Our Constitution was formulated to define the structure, the role, and the function of the Federal Government. The first sentence of Articles I, II, and III of the Constitution clearly and succinctly defines the structure and powers of the American government:

Article I, Section 1:

“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

Article II, Section 1:

“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows”

Article III, Section 1:

“The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”

Consequently, we have three branches of government with distinct duties and responsibilities—Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. The enumerated powers of these branches are defined and constrained within these Articles, and it can be said that Congress makes laws, the President executes the laws that Congress has passed, and the Supreme Court adjudicates the laws. Consequently, nothing in Constitutional American governance can exist outside of these branches. It is these three branches of government, which have separate and distinct duties and responsibilities, that form a balance of power under the Constitution, which helps to preserve the Natural, Constitutional, and Civil Rights of all people in America.

The other Articles of the Constitution, Articles IV-VII, are for the purposes of:

• Article IV – The Role of the States under the Constitution
• Article V – The Constitutional Amendment Process
• Article VI – Debts, Supremacy, and Oaths under the Constitution
• Article VII – The Ratification of the Constitution

The Constitutional Amendments are for various purposes, but they are all written to function within Constitutional parameters. The most significant of these Amendments is the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution, which clearly define an individual’s rights and the limitations of governmental powers over the people under the Constitution. Amendments XIII, XIV, and XV ended slavery and gave equal rights to all individuals in all levels of government. Amendment XVI permitted income taxes, while Amendment XIX gave the right to vote to women who are citizens, and Amendment XXVI gave the right to vote to all citizens who are eighteen years of age or older.

The Constitution established a Democratic republic in America, in which the House of Representatives members were elected democratically in districts apportioned by population to the States, and based upon equal population numbers of the House of Representatives districts within the States. Senators were two people from each State, originally chosen by the Legislature thereof, but Amendment XVII, passed by Congress May 13, 1912, and ratified by the States on April 8, 1913, modified how Senators were democratically elected by the people of the State thereof. Members of the Supreme Court and inferior court judges are nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and hold a lifetime appointment, unless they are impeached by the House of Representatives and removed by the Senate.

Accordingly, the Constitution was written to not only establish the form of American government, but also the limitations on American government. Anything in American government that exists outside of these forms and limitations is therefore unconstitutional. And anything in government that exists outside of these forms and limitations makes them unresponsive to the will of the people as expressed through democratic elections.

As I have previously written in my article on our American Ideals and Ideas, many Americans do not know or have forgotten the ideals and ideas upon which our country was founded, or as I have said, “The Declaration of Independence expresses our American ideals, while the Constitution of the United States is the ideas of how to implement our ideals.” There have also been throughout our history different interpretations of our Constitution between A Republican Constitution or a Democratic Constitution. By this, I do not mean the Republican Party or the Democratic Party Constitution, but a Republic or a Democratic political theory of the Constitution.

The difference between a Republican Constitution and a Democratic Constitution is the meaning of the phrase ‘We the People’. Does the ‘We’ mean an individual person, or does it mean all the people? Do individual rights take precedent over the will of the majority, or do the rights of the majority take precedent over individual rights? Our Constitution makes clear that minority rights cannot be infringed by the majority and, thus, individual rights have precedence over majority rule. Accordingly, our Constitution is not a Democratic Constitution and, therefore, it must be a Republican Constitution. You cannot have both, as each Political Theory leads to a different form of governance.

It is an unfortunate fact that we have strayed from our American Ideals and Ideas in our attempts to provide a more egalitarian society. But such an egalitarian society is often contrary to our American Ideals and Ideas, as it encroaches upon the forms and limitations of our Constitutional governance. And much of this encroachment is a result of trying to implement a Progressive ideology on American governance, as I have written in my collected Chirps on "Progressivism and Progressives".

In the Progressives' belief that the Constitution is a living, breathing document, rather than a compact and a contract, they reinterpret the Constitution to suit their objectives, as I have examined in my article on "A Compact and a Contract - Not A Living, Breathing Document". If our Constitution is a living, breathing document it would be equivalent to rules changing during a game, or, as the American economist, commentator, and academic Walter E. Williams once said, “Would you play in a poker game in which the rules could change during the game?” I think not, as rule changes during a game are often arbitrary, and provide advantages or disadvantages to different people, which in governance makes it very difficult for a people and a society to order and structure their lives. Such rule changes in Constitutional government should only be accomplished by the Constitutional Amendment Process, as defined in Article V of the Constitution, and only with the consent of three-fourths of the several States.

This article, along with my article on “The Eternal Truths and Relevance of The Declaration of Independence”, is an attempt to refocus American minds on the importance of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to ensure our Liberties and Freedoms. For without defending the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as President Abraham Lincoln has said, “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth” of a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”.