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Remember the "following the times" and "slippery slope" discussion?
I just came across this quote on a blog I follow.
"I am certainly not an advocate for for frequent and untried changes in
laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be
borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them,
and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know
also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress
of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as
new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions
change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance
also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to
wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to
remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
-Thomas Jefferson, 1816 (my emphasis)
http://kottke.org/12/12/men-wearing-boys-coats
With that sort of mentality about his own and his peers' limitations in the scheme of greater history and mankind, I think it speaks a lot to the fact that the Constitution was framed with an amendment process in mind. And to the fact that "founders' intent" is not a valid argument by itself for anything.
And now I'm majorly crushing on TJeff.
Re: Remember the "following the times" and "slippery slope" discussion?
This is an excerpt from TJ's letter to Samuel Kercheval.
The sentences prior to this quote (in the OP) of TJ's letter read:
"This example reads to us the salutary lesson, that private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."
I think he means change to a constitution can occur but that it shouldn't create the above problem (how funny; we have this problem now). He notes a "departure from principle" and it becoming "precedent" AKA a slippery slope...until we arrive to where we are today, "automatons [self-operating machines] of misery."
He also notes the slippery slope of public debt, taxation, and its "train of wretchedness and oppression."
Hmmmm.
Who is trying to change the Constitution? Or rather, what does changing the Constitution have to do with taxation and public debt?
*notes that the original conversation about this was about religion and its influence in government and somehow spiraling into something about gay marriage, i.e. nothing to do with money*
I'm going to guess the idea of 'public extravagance' in this era referred to kings levying higher taxes to pay for their palaces and shiz, but I could be wrong there. The next part of the letter, since we're doing this:
It is this preposterous idea which has lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead of wisely yielding to the gradual change of circumstances, of favoring progressive accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung to old abuses, entrenched themselves behind steady habits, and obliged their subjects to seek through blood and violence rash and ruinous innovations, which, had they been referred to the peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom of the nation, would have been put into acceptable and salutary forms.
So is "progressive accommodation to progressive improvement" something to be desired? Or is that a slippery slope a la a "departure from principle"? Where do we differentiate between being wary of departing from principles versus entrenching ourselves being steady habit and old abuses?
On the subject of clinging to the constitution as per its original state:
Each generation is as independent as the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances in which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and it is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity of doing this every nineteen or twenty years*, should be provided by the constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time, if anything human can so long endure. It is now forty years since the constitution of Virginia was formed. The same tables inform us, that, within that period, two-thirds of the adults then living are now dead. Have then the remaining third, even if they had the wish, the right to hold in obedience to their will, and to laws heretofore made by them, the other two-thirds, who, with themselves, compose the present mass of adults? If they have not, who has? The dead? But the dead have no rights. They are nothing; and nothing cannot own something.
Maybe he's a little contradictory of himself from the beginning to the end; I don't think so, I think he's just on a different focus- the very specific matter of taxation for purposes of "public extravagance" (which you then have to define and you can guarantee that definition will change from person to person let alone generation to generation) vs the very philosophy of constructing an enduring government. Regardless, the point of the OP was just that TJeff himself was aware that he and the other framers could not speak for future generations, being wholly unaware of where time might take the country.
Nevertheless, I'm sorry that you're feeling wretched and oppressed, ML.
*notes that, interestingly, Ohio does have that provision written into its constitution; this year was one of their 20 year votes on whether to hold a committee to examine amending the constitution. Don't think it passed.