The Meaning of Constitutional Government
9
order, or justice. The ‘‘paper constitutions’’ of many new African states
that were proclaimed during the 1950s and 1960s collapsed altogether
within a very few years.
Third, a good constitution should be neither easy to alter nor impossible to amend. This is because, on the one hand, a constitution is meant
to be permanent and to assure a people that the political pattern of their
country will not drastically change. On the other hand, the word permanent does not mean eternal. It is simply not possible for people who
are living near the end of the twentieth century to draft an unalterable
constitution for their great-grandchildren who will be living in a century to come.
This is true because, in the course of a century or two centuries, there
may occur significant political, economic, technological, military, or even
physical changes in the circumstances of a nation. Therefore a good constitution must be elastic enough to allow for modification of certain of its
provisions without the need to abolish the whole constitution.
This understanding of what a constitution should do and cannot do is
derived chiefly from the success of the Constitution of the United States.
‘‘The American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off
at a given time by the brain and purpose of man,’’ wrote William Gladstone, an English statesman, in 1878. That may seem to be extravagant
praise. But surely no body of men has ever achieved a political result
more ennobling and more enduring than that which the Framers of the
Constitution produced in the summer of 1787.
The following sections of this book explain the historic roots of the
American Constitution, the events of the ‘‘Great Convention’’ of 1787, the
major political principles of the Constitution, why the Bill of Rights was
added to the original articles of the Constitution, the process of ratification, the meaning of the document’s important provisions, how they are
to be interpreted, and how they may be changed.
Presumably, nearly all the people who read this book will continue to
live under the protection of the Constitution of the United States, so they
may find it worthwhile to understand just what the Constitution does,
and how it influences their lives, their family, their community, and their
nation.