We the People
“We the people,” remains as one of the most important political statements in world history. The first three words of the preamble to the Constitution situated the entire American government. “We the people” sat in direct contradiction to the European monarchies and created the first republic since the Romans nearly two-thousand years earlier. The constitutional preamble situated the new American government in 1789 as the first democratic republic and many world powers assumed it would fail within a few years.
* The constitution was a combination of work that was compiled by otherwise dissimilar political leaders, as illustrated by the combining forces of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Representing the two largest and most important states, Virginia and New York, Madison and Hamilton probably disagreed on every form of political philosophy. However, both individual lived by the preamble and the philosophy set-forth in “we the people.”
* As such an important political document in world history, put alongside the Magna Carta, the American Constitution is currently the shortest constitution governing any country. The reason for the brief measure of the Constitution is the focus of the preamble. “We the people” set-forth a nation predicated on the will of popular sovereignty–at least on paper–and refused to delegate every specificity on national governance for the future.
* Although the preamble and sentiments of “we the people” represents a major shift in world thinking, the Constitution remains a flawed document. Since thirteen individual colonies had to agree and pass the measure, certain facts are still an embarrassment to this otherwise exalted document. Once the decision was made to make the United States a bi-cameral system–consisting of two houses in Congress–arguments broke out over how to properly elect officials. If voting was based on population, states like Rhode Island would have little voice but if it was based on set numbers then states like New York would have there citizens represented at a smaller percentage. The agreement to utilize both forms created the three-fifths compromise. Still in the Constitution, the three-fifths clause sets forth that all slaves would count as three-fifths of a person for population purposes. In addition to this horrible affront, all the Southern colonies refused to be party to a Constitution that could outlaw slavery. In order to compromise, there was placed a gag rule disallowing any talk of slavery for a set amount of time.
The Constitution is far from a perfect document, representing a collection of political philosophies and prejudices. But, allowing “we the people” to begin the preamble allowed later advancement in social theory. Rather than a document fixed in time, the Constitution sits as a living document that needs to be reevaluated and examined with every subsequent generation.
