An Op-Ed piece today shines a new light, from the media anyway, on the presidential electors and also brings up a good point about the ultimate reverence we give to the framers of the constitution and the frame-work they established for our government.
It's always interesting when a national lawsuit of constitutional significance comes to the fore to see the pundits on television talking about what the framers "meant" when they wrote the constitution. In his book, Original Meanings, Rakove goes to great lenghts to establish the circumstances around which the constitution was written. Moreover, he establishes that even Madison, the primary author of the document, didn't quite know exactly what all of these things meant.
As we learned in US History, Washington was writing to his cabinet very early on to find out what the Constitution meant when it established certain things. Even the framers disagreed on many issues, not the least of which was whether or not the government could establish a national bank. With each constitutional issue, we see the proponents for change pointing out these facts and also that, since it can be amended, the constitution was meant to adapt to the ideals of the time. While on the side of stagnation, we have people waving the constitution about reading fragments and phrases with missionary zealotry.

- posted by levinson @ 12/19/2000 08:38:00 AM