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How Not To Read The Constitution Summary

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Sitting in the National Archives in Washington D.C. lives the most important document when it comes to our country and United States government. Professor Laurence H. Tribe and Michael C. Dorf are authors of the article “How Not to Read the Constitution”. Both have worked with the United States Supreme Court and teach Constitutional Law. Working together, these men have studied and have taken interest in the document that formed our country, the Constitution, trying to piece together a giant mystery, a puzzle that needs to be completed. This piece of paper was signed by a group of men filled with a want to forget the mistake of the Articles of Confederation, a gargantuan governmental mistake, wanting to start anew. Signed on September 17th, 1787 this document is the shortest of constitutions, there are still many questions that need to be answered. This goes to show that maybe our forefathers and first government leaders gave us all this puzzle to complete, open to opinions. How Not to Read …show more content…
It is a giant mystery why the Constitution has many loose ends and instructions without clear detail. Liberal Justice White and conservative Justice William Rehnquist both agreed that there is no fixed meaning to this piece of paper. There is a difference between writing and reading. Our forefathers were writing their wishes and dreams of what they wanted our government to look like not only then, but in the future as well. Are we as readers fulfilling their dreams by reading the Constitution as they wished or wrote it? Are we just confusing it? As humans we interpret things how we wish to see them based on our values and our views could be very different from the person next to us. Should we take every single little word of the Constitution seriously or leave it up to interpretation? That is your

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