The Consititution is the bedrock of this country. It defines this country. But just what does the Constitution define? Stirling Newberry has started a series on this. The reality is that this country has gone through two major governmental changes. Two changes that redefined government and its role. The first division was the Civil War and the second division was FDR. We are now at a third division and the beginning of a Fourth Republic. Stirling's look at this is very illuminating. He has two parts up. I don't know how many parts this will be and I'm not sure exactly where he is going with this, but I am most interested in seeing where he thinks the Fourth Republic is going. We are in the middle of a consitutional crisis. There are a lot of very big issues in our world. I think this is the biggest.

The Fourth Republic - Thesis

Every nation has national myths: ideas which are clothed as gnomic statements, axiomic in their pithiness. The Germans have myth of the "Fatherland", the French of the "National Will". In America, the continuity of our nation is symbolized by the assertion that, since 1789, we have been governed by the same constitution. It is true that the same piece of paper is involved - but if the "election" of 1789 were held today, it would scarcely be recognizable to Americans as a "Democratic election". Legislatures chose electors, who were then manipulated behind the scenes to prevent a tie between the candidates for president and vice president. Today we live under political parties, and the contest between parties is the balancing mechanism of government. Yet there is no mention of them in the constitution anywhere, even the founding political theory which the constitution rests on abhors them. Many of the fundamental mechanisms which balance power are not constitutional. For example, the sacred "cloture" rule, which effectively creates requirement for a 3/5 majority to pass contentious issues through the Senate - is nowhere enshrined in statute or constitution. The process of blue slips, the legislative offices, the workings of committees - all the product of agreement. It is also the product of agreement that presidential electors are no longer chosen by state legislatures. True, no state has done so in over a century and a quarter, and this makes our current system of general slate election "ancient usage and custom" rather than having the force of law While most school children are taught that the difference between the United States of America's constitution and the British constitution is that theirs is unwritten, while ours is written - it simply is not true. Our constitution is both written and unwritten. What is different is that our constitution's legitimacy rests in a written original, and all arguments appeal back to that written original. However, how we look at that original has changed drastically, in fact it has twice changed so radically that one must admit that what was before, and what was after, were two entirely different governments.

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The Fourth Republic:
Constitution as Contract (1787-1860)