The bad guys (almost) always win in American politics. They (almost) always have and always will.

[BurtWorm]

To support this (admittedly arguable) thesis, I offer a slender but powerful new book called Slavery's Constitution, by David Waldstreicher of Temple University.

His theme is that the constitution, while rarely addressing slavery outright, essentially legitimized it. Just think of the three-fifths rule, which is often viewed mistakenly as a denigration of African-American personhood. It was nothing of the kind. It was, rather, an aggrandizing of slave owners' power--the bargaining chip the federalists used to bribe Southern states to get with their program.

As usual in American politics, when politicians design a bargaining chip to entice rotten people into doing good things, they give away the whole store. In the case of slavery, the federalists designed a process that caused little debate in the South--except in Virginia and North Carolina, where many counties were overwhelmingly populated by poor farmers with no slave labor and little political power. In the north, the anti-federalists saw the writing on the wall and almost won the battle, warning their fellow Americans that the Constitution was a big fat french kiss to the wealthiest most immoral people in the New World whose economy, despite being based on "free" labor and besides being transparently evil, was a major drain on the nation's economy as a whole. They also protested the lack of transparency that went into the making of the constitution and the false sense of urgency the federalists were whipping up to reduce the time and cramp the space for debate. We know how the story turned out.

Doesn't this scenario sound sickeningly familiar?

[AllentownJake]

1. It was the first of its kind

and quite a progressive document for 1788-1789.

That being said, worshipping the constitution as the end all and be all of how a government should operate is a lot like worshipping the EINAC as the way all computers should function.

[Ozymanithrax]

2. The original Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were unworkable...

The Federal Government had no real power and nothing like the Bill of Rights that amended our existing Constitution.

Yes, the Constitution did allow slavery. It was necessary to change it after the Civil War. The problem now is the large number of people who hold the Constitution to be something like the bible.

The founding fathers were flawed men who executed a brilliant document, but I don't think they intended it to remain inviolate or sacred. It should be a living document that we can reinterpret, that can grow as humans become more enlightened.

[timeforpeace]

3. Agreed, and never more true than today.