Reasons Not to Change
The Earth belongs to the living generation. Its history, the government, the freedom, and the laws of this land belong to those before us- those who have fought and deliberated American liberty for years. The institutions we enjoy today are byproducts of history, ones we “inherited” through trial and error of our previous generations. As so, although the evolving standards of decency calls for evolvement of laws, the idea of rewriting the American Constitution every 19 years elicit many concerns. First, rewriting the Constitution is unnecessary and impractical given our use of precedents and the power of judicial review. Not only so, there are dangers of rewriting the law so often because there are social risks and consequences …show more content…
For instance, a Supreme Court decision State v. Post showed justices making excuses to legitimize the existence and continuation of slavery . Similarly, Buck vs. Bell presented a case regarding constitutionality of sterilization of mentally retarded people . It is clearly evident that many of our historical ideals were irrational; however, our standard of decency did evolve as Jefferson asserted and our laws did change accordingly with the power of judicial review. The main fulcrum of this argument is the fact that there is no need to call for a redraft of the Constitution every 19 years when judicial review is already in practice. Judicial review alone is slowly changing the laws based on standard of decency, and rewriting the entire Constitution is unnecessary and …show more content…
This is in fact one of the reasons why the current judiciary evaluates cases one by one and implement or change appropriate laws so slowly. In evaluating the dangers of rewriting the supreme law of the land, it is important to point out who will be the ones making changes to the Constitution. If the power to rewrite the Constitution lies in the people, the potential danger of rise of factions, which Alexander Hamilton warned about, would disturb “public tranquility” and allow too much “public passions”. Each factions arguing for its self-interest will create an unfavorable situation of each faction playing the game to win its share of the pie. Trying to mitigate the differences and come to a conclusion about who gets the share and who doesn’t will result in a tremendous loss of time and resources. In fact, Hamilton’s alternative solution of creating the legislative branch to allow checks and balances of other branches is already in good practice today. On the other hand, if the power to draft is given to the lawmakers, the trouble of populism will upset the people and elicit dissent from the general public. Either way, the idea of rewriting the Constitution is unsafe by preponderance of
The Earth belongs to the living generation. Its history, the government, the freedom, and the laws of this land belong to those before us- those who have fought and deliberated American liberty for years. The institutions we enjoy today are byproducts of history, ones we “inherited” through trial and error of our previous generations. As so, although the evolving standards of decency calls for evolvement of laws, the idea of rewriting the American Constitution every 19 years elicit many concerns. First, rewriting the Constitution is unnecessary and impractical given our use of precedents and the power of judicial review. Not only so, there are dangers of rewriting the law so often because there are social risks and consequences …show more content…
For instance, a Supreme Court decision State v. Post showed justices making excuses to legitimize the existence and continuation of slavery . Similarly, Buck vs. Bell presented a case regarding constitutionality of sterilization of mentally retarded people . It is clearly evident that many of our historical ideals were irrational; however, our standard of decency did evolve as Jefferson asserted and our laws did change accordingly with the power of judicial review. The main fulcrum of this argument is the fact that there is no need to call for a redraft of the Constitution every 19 years when judicial review is already in practice. Judicial review alone is slowly changing the laws based on standard of decency, and rewriting the entire Constitution is unnecessary and …show more content…
This is in fact one of the reasons why the current judiciary evaluates cases one by one and implement or change appropriate laws so slowly. In evaluating the dangers of rewriting the supreme law of the land, it is important to point out who will be the ones making changes to the Constitution. If the power to rewrite the Constitution lies in the people, the potential danger of rise of factions, which Alexander Hamilton warned about, would disturb “public tranquility” and allow too much “public passions”. Each factions arguing for its self-interest will create an unfavorable situation of each faction playing the game to win its share of the pie. Trying to mitigate the differences and come to a conclusion about who gets the share and who doesn’t will result in a tremendous loss of time and resources. In fact, Hamilton’s alternative solution of creating the legislative branch to allow checks and balances of other branches is already in good practice today. On the other hand, if the power to draft is given to the lawmakers, the trouble of populism will upset the people and elicit dissent from the general public. Either way, the idea of rewriting the Constitution is unsafe by preponderance of