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Changing the Constitution
Its current may be fast or sluggish. Precisely similar are the dynamics of
the American Constitution. Throughout its history, the Constitution, as interpreted and applied by each generation, has changed almost without interruption. The Constitution today is different in many respects from the
Constitution of 1787. A mere reading of the document itself, without consulting Supreme Court opinions, the history books, legal treatises, and
other extrinsic aids, would give the student not only a meager understanding of what the Constitution meant in 1787 but in many ways a misunderstanding of what it means today.
Why, it may be asked, should the Constitution change at all? Does it
not prescribe a fixed code of conduct for public officials? Does it not represent the ‘‘permanent will’’ of the American people? These questions
may be answered in the affirmative, but our response requires some elaboration. It must be borne in mind that political societies, especially in advanced countries like the United States, are not static. Change is inevitable. Society must change—and slow change, we might add, is the means
of its preservation, like the human body’s perpetual renewal. If society
changes, so too must its constitution, lest it fall by the wayside as an outmoded relic of the past. The Framers of t