Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Let's Read the Constitution Day!

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January 20, 2011

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 14

Hatched by Dafydd

I have always been impressed that, as brilliant as so many of the Founders were, they didn't fall into the Algore trap (or the Obamatrap) of imagining that they were the smartest people in the room -- every room, for all time. Thus they wrote into the document procedures for amending it in the future.

Article V - Amendment

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Article VI - Debts, Supremacy, Oaths

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

The business about the Constitution, federal law, and treaties being the "supreme law of the land" must have stuck in the craw of many of those used to the states being fully sovereign; but the colossal failure of the Articles of Confederation -- the dysfunctional government from 1781 to 1789, when the Constitution was ratified -- made it clear to most that:

If America was ever to become a country that could defend itself from Great Britain, it would have to exercise more control over its constituent parts.

And that we needed both a chief executive (the President) and a judicial system.

Under the Articles, Britain would have picked off the states, bribing them one by one to ally with their former enemy, until the remaining states would have been swept back into the fold.

All verses in the Lizardian Constitutional Collection:

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 1 (Preamble)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 2 (Congress; House, part I)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 3 (House, part II)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 4 (Senate, part I)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 5 (Senate, part II)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 6 (General congressional admin stuff)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 7 (Legislative process and enumerated powers)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 8 (Limitations)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 9 (The prez -- who does he think he is?)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 10 (What would a president do?)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 11 (Judiciary)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 12 (States, part I)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 13 (States, part 2)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 14 (Amendment; supreme law of the land)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 15 (Ratification rules and signers)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 16 (Amendments: Bill of Rights, Amendments 1-4)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 17 (Bill of Rights -- Courtroom Amendments 5-8)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 18 (Bill of Last Rights 9 and 10)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 19 (Amendments: Suing other states, president vs. vice president)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 20 (Amendments: Abolition of slavery)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 21 (Amendments: States prohibited from infringing rights)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 22 (Amendments: Racial voting rights)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 23 (Amendments: Wilsonian-Progressivism I)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 24 (Amendments: Wilsonian-Progressivism II)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 25 (Amendments: Rooseveltian amendments)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 26 (Amendments: Camelot amendments)

Let's Read the Constitution Day! - verse 27 (Amendments: Panacea amendments)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 20, 2011, at the time of 12:00 AM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: wtanksleyjr

This entire section is overridden and should be written in strikethrough -- there's no purpose for a complex amendment when all you have to do is get an unelected, life-appointed judge to agree with your deconstructionist interpretation of emanations of antepenumbral inequality-theoretical entailments of the Constitution.

Wow, I need to get out more; that last sentence was the most fun I've had in a long time.

-Wm

The above hissed in response by: wtanksleyjr at January 20, 2011 9:16 AM