A ‘remarkable achievement’

I am writing to reflect on a opinion expressed in a commentary by Colin McEnroe contending that the Constitution is overrated. He criticized the secret meetings of the Founding Fathers during the Constitutional Convention, their drinking habits, the wording of the 2nd Amendment, the failure to abolish slavery and establish the rights of African Americans and women. These opinions of course are expressed well over 200 years after its writing and adoption and lacks reasonable perspective.

At the time the Constitution was adopted, the United States was a weak confederation of 13 colonies. Within approximately 200 years we were the sole superpower in the world and according to many historians more powerful than any other country in history. Because of the ingenuity of our early leaders in the country’s infancy, we were able to maintain our sovereignty despite incursions and hostile pressures from powerful European countries that were militarily much stronger.

Within about 60 years after the Constitution was adopted, we had successfully expanded across the continent to become one of the largest countries in the world and a transcontinental power. After the Civil War we grew industrially within the country and traded overseas and became one of the world’s great powers by the end of the 19th century and its leading economic power. At the turn of the century, the average American enjoyed unparalleled prosperity relative to his and her counterparts throughout the world.

We engaged in two global conflicts with military and ideological adversaries and vanquished all of them. In World War II we fully mobilized unprecedented economic and military power for total victory. After the war and within only 160 years from the Constitution’s adoption, the United States was the world’s global leader. During the Cold War we successfully maintained for decades the containment of communism, ending in victory without the disaster of a thermonuclear conflagration which was a constant threat.

By 1991, we were in the unprecedented position of being the world’s sole superpower. All of this was achieved without the loss of the freedoms and independence of individual Americans. Quite different, for example, from the French Revolution, which was contemporary with our own and which devolved into a bloodbath and then a dictatorship which brought untold suffering to Europe.

The major reasons for this preservation of liberty was our Constitution. It created an effective central government to defend and promote our country but with checks and balances that preserved our freedoms. Other countries without our Constitution were subjected to monarchies, fascism, communism and other despotic governments while this country flourished economically and politically.

The problem that I see with Mr. McEnroe’s opinion is that in the 21st century with the benefits that have accrued under our constitutional system, he looks back only on our errors, which were certainly considerable and of which we are frequently reminded. But as one of the Founding Fathers, Madison, commented, men are not angels and I do not think that over the last 200-plus years there has been established elsewhere better foundations for a governmental structure than our Constitution.

It is true that it was written in secret just like legislation is now, the product of secret meetings among leaders and in party caucuses in our state legislatures and U.S. Congress. It is also true that many of the signers of the Constitution were slave owners, which remains the most glaring and protracted shadow over our country, although it could not have been abolished at the time of the Constitutional Convention and a unified country established.

Other injustices such as the Trail of Tears and a lack of women’s right to vote abound. But no doubt future generations will look back at our current generation in disgust for some of our thinking and actions. To think otherwise would be the ultimate hubris. As to the heavy drinking of our forefathers, which was the common habit of Americans at that time, as we look at the present-day United States Congress’ inability to effectively do business, e.g. immigration and Social Security reform, failure to have a budget versus “continuing resolutions” and the list goes on — our nation would be better off if the members of Congress today would together gather at a local tavern in Washington, have a few drinks and try to solve problems rather than spend time preparing meaningless soundbites for the media.

The Constitution was a remarkable achievement. The major reason that our country remains free and prosperous to this day is that a large numbers of thoughtful Americans revere it.