Latest / The Fine Print of Democracy / The Fine Print of The US Constitution
Transcript
- Jake Jenkins: Welcome to the Fine Print of Democracy, a Civics podcast that explores the overlooked rules, processes, and institutions that shape American government. I'm Jake, a civics teacher breaking down the ideas behind our system of government and the conversations that help us better understand it. Each Thursday episode begins with a reading of a fine print article, followed by teachers' notes, a conversation about the questions, misconceptions, and connections that come up when we teach these ideas in the classroom. Because understanding government isn't just about knowing the rules, it's about understanding why those rules exist and why they matter. Today, the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States, the blueprint for American government. We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union. Those may be the most recognizable words in American history. They're also some of the most misunderstood. Many people think the Constitution is simply a list of rights or laws. In reality, it's something much more fundamental, a blueprint for how government itself is supposed to function. The Articles of Confederation, the first governing document of the United States, created a government that was too weak. The founders recognized the federal government needed more authority if they wanted their new country to succeed. They weren't trying to create the best government. They were trying to create one just strong enough to function without becoming too powerful. And after gathering in Philadelphia for more debate and discussion, the United States Constitution is what they settled on. The federal government then and now only has the powers the Constitution gives it. The founders believed government power begins with limits, not assumptions. So they outlined exactly what authority the federal government would have. Instead of creating a government that could exercise any authority it wanted, they listed the specific powers the federal government would have. These are known as enumerated powers. Just as importantly, they didn't place all of that authority in one institution. They divided it among three separate branches, each with its own responsibilities and each able to check the others through a system of checks and balances. The first branch, outlined in Article I of the Constitution, is the legislative branch. This branch is made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and their role is to write laws for the country. The second branch is the executive branch, made up of the President, the Vice President, and the President's Cabinet. The main function of this branch is to enforce the laws written by Congress. The third branch is the judicial branch, made up of the federal court system, including the Supreme Court. Their role is to interpret the laws and judge constitutionality. The founders also included a process for amending the Constitution, but they made that process deliberately difficult. They recognized that a governing document that changes with every election would lose much of its ability to provide a stable framework. This doesn't mean that change never happens. The Constitution can be and has been amended 27 times to be exact. This created a system that could provide stability while still allowing the country to grow and adapt. More than two hundred and thirty years later, the Constitution is still the country's governing framework. Presidents have changed, Congress has changed, political parties have changed, technology has changed, states have been added to the Union, yet the framework remains. The Constitution was written specifically to last. It is meant to outlast individual leaders. The Constitution is not a list of answers, it's a framework for making decisions. It doesn't promise perfect government, but it promises limited government operating with the Within agreed upon rules, a document that every generation can return to, even as the people, politics, and problems continue to change. And that is the vine print of the US Constitution. Whenever I teach these topics, the most interesting conversations often happen after the explanation is finished. Every lesson has a few things that don't always fit on the page, so let's move beyond the textbook and into teachers' notes. The questions students ask, the misconceptions we unpack, and the conversations that make civics worth teaching. There are a few things in the Constitution that I think make a lot more sense once you understand what came before it. And if you've ever looked at the Constitution and thought, okay, but why do they design it this way? That's really where it becomes important to understand the Articles of Confederation. Because the Constitution didn't appear out of nowhere. The people writing it had already tried something else. And that first attempt was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles are sometimes taught as this sort of like failed experiment that the founders immediately realized was terrible, which isn't actually the whole story. The articles were written during the Revolutionary War at a time when Americans were understandably terrified of creating another powerful central government. Remember, they were fighting a revolution against the British monarchy at this time. So when they created the articles, they deliberately made the national government weak. The articles actually say, quote, each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, end quote. That's a pretty strong statement. The states weren't just members of a national government, the states were supposed to remain extremely powerful. And the national government was largely dependent on them. There was a Congress, but there wasn't a president. There was no national executive branch. There was no national judicial branch. And perhaps most importantly, Congress didn't have the power to directly tax the people. Think about that for a second. Imagine Congress passes a law saying the federal government needs $10 billion to do something. Under the Articles, Congress couldn't simply send you a tax bill. It had to ask the states for the money. And the states could just say no, which created a huge problem. The national government could make decisions, but it often didn't have the ability to actually carry them out. And this is one of the things I think is worth emphasizing to students. Having authority and having power are not always the same thing. The articles gave Congress responsibilities, but didn't always give it the tools necessary to fulfill those responsibilities. The government owed money to soldiers who had fought in the revolution, for example, but if it couldn't reliably raise revenue, how is it supposed to pay those debts? How was it supposed to pay those soldiers? The government could try to regulate relationships between the states, but if it had very little ability to enforce its decisions, how effective was that regulation even going to be? So when the founders gathered in Philadelphia in 1787, they weren't starting from scratch. They were trying to fix the problems they had already experienced. They wanted a stronger national government, but they absolutely did not want an unlimited national government. In fact, they were so concerned about that possibility that they built limitations directly into the structure of the government itself. Which brings us to enumerated powers. If a student hears the phrase enumerated powers, they think it just means powers listed in the Constitution. They're basically right, but the bigger idea is limited government. The Constitution isn't saying here is the federal government, it can do whatever it deems useful. It starts from the opposite assumption. The federal government has certain powers because the Constitution gives it those powers. You can see that on Article 1. The Constitution says, quote, all legislative powers herein granted should be vested in a Congress of the United States, end quote. That phrase, herein granted, is important. The powers are granted herein, meaning they're coming from the Constitution. And then Article 1, Section 8 actually starts listing them. Congress can tax, it can borrow money. Congress can regulate commerce and establish rules for naturalization. Congress can coin money, it can can declare war. Congress can raise and support armies and so on and so on. But then you get to the final clause of that section. Quote, to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper, For carrying into execution their foregoing powers. End quote. That's the necessary and proper clause. And this is where students might reasonably ask: wait, if the government only has specific powers, doesn't that mean Congress can only do things that are literally written down? Not exactly. The necessary and proper clause gives Congress some flexibility in carrying out its enumerated powers, which is important because the people writing the Constitution knew they couldn't predict every single situation the government might encounter in perpetuity. They couldn't write down every possible law Congress might someday need to pass. So they created a government with defined powers, but gave it enough flexibility to exercise those powers effectively. That balance shows up over and over again. Bringing us to the three branches. Students usually learn legislative makes the laws, executive enforces the laws, and judicial interprets the laws. And again, that's all true, but not the full story. The interesting question often asked here is why split the government up at all? Why not just have one institution make the laws, enforce the laws, and decide whether those laws are constitutional? The answer to that is power. The founders were deeply concerned about what would happen if too much power ended up in just one place. They had just fought a king and weren't particularly interested in creating an American version of one. But they also understood something about human nature. People don't always voluntarily give up power. That's where James Madison comes in. In Federalist number fifty one, Madison wrote, quote, ambition must be made to counteract. Ambition. End quote. That sentence can sound pretty abstract, so let's slow it down a little. ⁓ when Madison says ambition, he's talking about something we usually think of as negative. Someone wants power, someone wants influence, someone wants their institution to win. But Madison's argument is basically: what if we design the government so that those ambitions can work against each other? Instead of assuming that every government official will always make the perfect decision for the public good. Build a system where officials have reasons to protect their own institutions' power. Though Congress doesn't want the president becoming too powerful, the president doesn't want Congress controlling everything. And the courts have an interest in protecting the authority of the judiciary. Congress has tools to limit the executive branch. The president has a veto. The Senate has a role in confirming presidential appointments. The courts can review government actions. In other words, Madison isn't saying, let's find people who are so virtuous that they'll never abuse. power, he's saying, let's build a system where power can check power. A really important distinction. Checks and balances aren't based on everyone getting along. In fact, they're actually designed with the assumption that sometimes they won't get along. And that can make government frustrating, it can make government slow, it can create conflict, it can produce a gridlock. But from the founder's perspective, some of that was the point. A government that can act instantly and without opposition can also become dangerous very quickly. The Constitution creates friction. And sometimes that friction is a feature, not a bug. You can see this in the legislative process. Congress passes a bill. The president can veto it, but Congress can override the veto with a two thirds vote in both chambers. The president nominates federal judges, but the Senate has to confirm them. The House can impeach a president, but the Senate conducts the trial. Congress passes laws, but courts can determine whether government actions violate the Constitution. No single institution gets to say, I have the final say about everything. That's the basic idea. Which brings up another question students sometimes have. If the branches are supposed to be separate, why do they even overlap so much? That's also intentional, actually. The Constitution doesn't create three completely isolated and separate branches. It creates three branches that have different primary responsibilities, but also have tools that affect one another. That's the checks part of checks and balances. The president isn't just an executive. president has a legislative check through the veto. Congress isn't just a legislative body, the Senate has a role in executive appointments and treaties. The judiciary isn't just interpreting laws, the courts can check the other branches by determining whether their actions are consistent with the Constitution. The branches are separate, but they're not independent. They're interconnected. And that connection is what keeps any one of them from becoming completely dominant. There's another part of Constitution that I think is easy to overlook, and that's how much of the document is actually devoted to creating institutions rather than talking about individual rights. We tend to think about the Constitution primarily through the Bill of Rights, the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. And those are obviously incredibly important. But remember, the Bill of Rights wasn't originally the main structure of the Constitution. The first three articles are mostly about government power. Article one creates Congress, Article II creates the presidency. And Article 3 creates the federal judiciary. The Constitution is at its core a document about government. The Bill of Rights comes later as an additional set of protections. And make sure to subscribe on Substack and wherever you get your podcast because next week's fine print post is all about the Bill of Rights. All right, back to the Constitution. Even the way the branches are described tells us something about what the founders thought government was even supposed to do. Article one begins with Congress. Quote, All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, end quote. Article two begins, quote, the executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America, end quote. And Article three begins, quote, the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, end quote. Notice the pattern. Legislative power, executive power, and judicial power. The Constitution isn't just naming three jobs, it's dividing governmental power. And that gets back to the larger idea of the Constitution as a framework. This document doesn't tell every future president exactly what to do, doesn't tell every future Congress exactly what laws to pass, doesn't even tell judges how to resolve every imaginable legal dispute. It couldn't. Instead, it creates institutions and gives them powers. Then it creates rules for how those institutions interact. That's why the Constitution can survive circumstances its authors never could have imagined. But that also creates a problem. Sometimes the Constitution is deliberately vague. And students might reasonably ask why didn't they just be more specific? Well, sometimes they were and sometimes they weren't. One reason they couldn't be completely specific is that they were writing a document they expected future generations to live under. They couldn't predict every future problem. They also couldn't agree on every issue. It just wasn't possible. The Constitution was the result of compromise. The delegates disagreed about representation. They disagreed about slavery. They disagreed about executive power. They disagreed about how much authority the federal government should even have. And the document they produced doesn't erase those disagreements. In fact, it is the product of those disagreements. That might actually be one of the most important things for students to understand about the Constitution. It wasn't created because the founders all agreed, it was created because they disagreed and still needed a government. All that compromise brings us to the amendment process. A student may look at Article V and ask if the Constitution is supposed to change when the country changes, why make amendments so difficult? Because the Constitution is supposed to be different from ordinary law. Congress can pass a law with a majority vote. A future Congress can then repeal that law with another majority vote. But changing the Constitution requires a much larger consensus, and that is very much intentional. The Constitution is supposed to sit above ordinary political disagreements. If every election could completely rewrite the rules of government, the Constitution wouldn't even provide much stability. And at the same time, the founders didn't make amendment impossible. The Constitution has been amended twenty seven times, and some of those amendments responded to enormous changes in American society. For example, the thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. The fourteenth changed the constitutional understanding of citizenship and equal protection. The fifteenth prohibited denying the right to vote based on race. The nineteenth expanded voting rights to women, and the twenty-sixth lowered the voting age to eighteen. So the Constitution can change. It just requires more than a temporary political majority. And maybe that's the balance the entire document is trying to strike. Strong enough to govern, limited enough to prevent domination. Stable enough to provide continuity, flexible enough to adapt. Those tensions never really disappear. That's probably why the Constitution is still relevant more than 230 years later. The people who wrote it couldn't possibly have anticipated modern America, but they didn't need to. They created a system that could be interpreted, adjusted, challenged, and amended by generations that came after them. And that takes us back to the opening words we the people of the United States. That phrase is easy to overlook because we've heard it so many times, but it's actually a pretty remarkable way to begin a governing document. Not we the states, not we the Congress, and not we the president or Me, the president, we the people. The Declaration of Independence states that government gets its legitimacy from the people, and the Constitution is essentially an explanation of what that government is allowed to do with the authority the people give it. That's why I think the Constitution is better understood as a framework rather than as a list of answers. It doesn't tell every generation exactly what to believe. It gives every generation a system within which we have to work out our disagreements. And that's probably the most enduring part of the document. The Constitution was never supposed to eliminate political disagreement. It was supposed to make it possible for people who disagree to continue sharing the same government. And considering how much the country has changed since a pretty remarkable thing for a document to accomplish. And that's the thing about civics. The most important conversations don't always happen in the textbook. They happen when we ask questions, challenge assumptions, and try to understand why the system works the way it does. Those are the conversations that happen beyond the textbook, and those are the conversations that make civics worth teaching. Remember, civics is something you keep learning, not something you finish. There's always another rule, institution, or piece of history to understand. Thanks for listening to the Fine Print of Democracy.