What makes the legitimacy, not to say its grandeur, of the American Constitution?

Maha Kobbi Tle B

Question of discussion: what makes the legitimacy, not to say its grandeur, of the American Constitution? As an integrated part of the American political system, would you say it increases or reduces individual liberties?

    “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”. This is the preamble of the American Constitution. The constitution is defined as being the crucial law of a State. It is the set of fundamental texts that set out the form of government, regulate the relationship between the governors and the governed and determine the organization of public powers. The American constitution was signed on September 17, 1787. It is the oldest written constitution still in force. Thereby, we will discuss about what makes its legitimacy nowadays. We will also see, as an integrated part of the American political system, if it increases or reduces individual liberties. First and foremost, we will examine the establishment of the Constitution in the United States. Over a second phase, we will deduce what makes its legitimacy. Finally, we will see how the Constitution affects individual liberties.

       The constitutional system the United-States have been living under since 1788, year of the first presidential election, was not the original American government. The first government set up by the continental congress was called the Articles of Confederation. It only lasted ten years. Indeed, the article set up a government that consisted of a one house body of delegates, there were no president and no judiciary. In addition, each state had a single vote to take collective action, make decisions on certain issues that affected all the states. Any decision required nine of the thirteen congressional votes which guarantee that very few decisions would be made. In the same manner, the Congress was very limited in what it could actually do: the government could declare war, conduct foreign affairs and make treaties. They could coin money but it couldn’t collect taxes. This last right was left to the state. The article could be amended but that required a unanimous vote so zero amendment was ever passed. The government was deliberately week which must follow from Americans fear of tyrannical governments. Even if at first glance this weak government was useless, it did accomplish couple things: first, it won the war, second, the government developed rules for dealing with Ohio (the northwest). Ohio was one of the most persistent problems facing the new nation. To get control of the land, the government had to take it from the Indians who were living there and the government was empowered to make treaties, which it did.  Through treaties signed, the Indians surrendered land north of the Ohio River. The biggest accomplishment of the Articles of Confederation government was the Northwest Ordinance, which set up a process to create 5 new states between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. This new decision admitted that Indian Americans had a claim to the land and, the ordinance outlawed slavery in all five of the new states. However, the Article government was still not suitable since it could not collect taxes. Indeed, both the national government and the individual states had racked up massive debt to pay for the war, and their main source of revenue became duties, but because Congress could not impose them, states had to do it individually. In some states, the problem got so bad that revolutionary movements have emerged. For example, in Massachusetts, farmers rose up and closed the courts to prevent them from foreclosing upon their debt-encumbered farms. This was called Shay’s Rebellion. The uprising was finally quelled by the state militia, but for the majority, this was the sign that the Articles government, which could not deal with the crisis at all, had to change. But not for everyone, in fact Thomas Jefferson said “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”. But for the most elites, this rebellion showed that too much democratic liberty among the lower classes could threaten private property. The first attempt to do something was a meeting in Annapolis in 1786. This meeting aimed to regulate in a better way international trade. During the meeting, the delegates were supposed to revise the articles, but in reality, they wrote a new charter of government, the constitution, which is, with some significant alterations, the same one that Americans live under today. Accordingly, we are going to describe more precisely this Constitution, and then we will discuss about its legitimacy.  

        During the creation of the Constitution, the delegates agreed on many things: the government should have executive, legislative and judicial branches, and should be a republican with representatives rather than direct democracy. Their concern was to create a government that would protect against tyranny by the government itself and tyranny by the people. They did want neither too much government nor too much democracy. This is why American presidents are elected not directly by regular people but also by five hundred thirty eight members of the Electoral College. Some conflicts also arose at the constitutional convention between states with big populations and those with small populations. Indeed large states supported Madison’s Virginia Plan. It called for a two house legislature with representation proportional to a state’s population. The smaller states rallied behind the New Jersey plan. It called for a single legislative house with equal representation for each state. As a final result, Roger Sherman proposed his comprise which consisted in two houses: a house of representatives with proportional representation to each state’s population, and a Senate with two members from each state. House members serve two year terms while Senators serve six year terms, with one third of them being re-elected in every two year cycle.  The House was designed to be responsible for the people. The Senate was created to never pass anything. This comprise was so well created that this is still how the Constitution works nowadays. Therefore, now that we have enlightened the establishment of the Constitution we can analyze what makes its legitimacy. First of all, when we see in which conditions it established we can immediately say that the Constitution helped, once, the country to deal with a crisis, and handle the politics of the country which was quite delicate. Secondly, we could interrogate ourselves about the relation of domination that the Constitution has over population, this would be the anarchist thought. Indeed, this current of thought rejects any hierarchical relationship. But the Constitution would be a counter-example. As we saw it before, the Constitution is not a dictatorship. The delegates that created it made sure that the decisions, the texts, would be made by representatives elected by the population itself. Therefore the current democratic laws are not despotic, they are not the result of the arbitrariness of a master, but they are prescribed by the citizens themselves through representatives. Moreover, a lot of philosophers have demonstrated that every human needed a government framework to blossom, to accomplish his humanity and his freedom. We could even assume that without a state framework, humans would be dominated by the strongest of them all. In this situation, humans would be comparable to a beast to a pack of animals. Thus, the Constitution is what gives to all citizens a politics liberty, where they can all obey to a law, resulting from the vote of each citizen, where they can realize themselves as a human being, as a citizen. Previously, we said that different elements could legitimate the presence of Constitution, especially the fact that it offers the politics liberty which is essential to every citizen. Now, it seems necessary to examine how it impacts individual liberties.

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