Letter 1. Preamble to The United States Constitution

    On this beautiful September day, a certain group of people was very tired, excited and in a big rush. They resolved insurmountable problem, managed unmanageable situation and finally had to see the result of their titanic work, the work which would define destiny of the generations to come. And they did have problems on their hands. Piling debt, enormous debt, way above yearly GDP. People divided not only by their ethnicity, but by culture and language. Forget about language - even topography was crucial: you couldn't put hillside Carolinians with the folks from the plains in the same room without imminent brawl ensued. The army was seriously contemplating turning their muskets at the politicians. And did I mention an armed rebellion? Yes, real rebellion by the same people who few years ago managed to get rid of the Big Brother residing across the ocean. Could you believe that? And this horrible Big Bad Brother wanted only one thing from them - to pay notorious Fair Share to the government which was overwhelmed trying to defend them and regulate their lives for, but of course, their own benefit.

    Well, this wonderful team had plethora of problems, short of natural disasters. Yet they never considered themselves a geniuses and nobody referred to them as "brilliant intellectuals", at least in their lifetime. Quite contrary - they had a lot of stress coming from fellow citizens whom they were representing at Continental Congress. There were plenty of grievances and political assaults, most undeserved, some justified. Today some scholars like to point out their common allegiance to some secret societies. While that may be true it looks like they have much higher loyalty: to the people and the country being born.

    Most of them made their living by practicing law and medicine, managing finances and real estate, yet they certainly knew what it takes to erect sound structure. The structure to stand for centuries and beam the light of hope for the whole mankind. They did something extraordinary by framing this document - the United States Constitution, which created a new nation. Out of multiplicity of territories without clearly defined borders, economic bases different in nature of production and markets, various ethnic groups of Anglo Saxons, Dutch, Swedes, Germans and never forget - native inhabitants predating colonists, with variety of languages, cultures and even religions, they managed to forge one nation, indivisible, where everybody would have their chance to pursue happiness, as they proudly had declared few years before.

    As we all know, in the beginning was a Word. Constitution framers were well-versed in Bible and thought well before setting cornerstone of the document - its Preamble. It was not supposed to be a law or any part of it, it does not grant nor limit any powers. These few words have much higher task - to introduce the law itself, its foundation and relevancy:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, 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."

    Fifty two words, including one with outdated British spelling ("defence") and puzzling choice of words - "more perfect" (how could anything be better than perfect?). Doesn't look like an A-grade text on the first sight. Let's look closer to get "more perfect" insight.

    So where does "more perfect" come from? Well, it wasn't the first attempt to create constitution. The first one, called Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was in effect for almost twelve years to this day. It was drafted and ratified in the midst of rebellion and war with Great Britain, as a product of serious debates and inevitable compromises. Naturally some people were happy with it and some were very unhappy, but it served its purpose well and new country lived by this law through the war and its first tumultuous years. It has some interesting ideas, not alien to some even today: federal taxation was explicitly forbidden, central government had no real executive powers, no army, no navy and even no finances besides states’ contributions and so on. But we have to face the truth – disregarding our views on centralized governing, it has some useful functions which were ascertained even by the Articles of Confederation, i.e. maintaining conditions suitable for the free markets exchange, handling foreign affairs and nation's security etc. And central government needs powers and money to do just that. Something had to be done to address that, but small problem was hanging over any try to re-write or create the new law of the land - Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were just that - perpetual. And by replacing them framers of the new constitution were formally committing high treason... Again. And, like the first time, when they raised an armed insurrection against British crown, they needed pretty good justification to do that, something next to the Declaration of Independence with all its brilliance, eloquence and unsurpassed legal rational, something worthy genius of the Jefferson's work. They did with the simple phrasing: "more perfect". They dared to establish something better, stronger and more permanent than perpetual articles. And with the same phrase, not incidentally, declared their views on the things to follow the Preamble: all articles of the new constitution will be the better laws and should be interpreted or, in case when they have to be amended, they will be changed to be even more perfect for the Union.

    To have attitude like that, these gentlemen must have a great deal of confidence. The first words of Preamble can give us a clue were this confidence came from: "We the People of the United States...". Majority of modern days liberal scholars usually interpret this phrase as the case for the strong federal government. After all, no individual states are mentioned here, which shows framers' commitment to the centralized power, named United States. This is true. But I see much greater commitment of these extraordinary people - they had sense of duty to the People of these United States. Yes, there is a higher authority than former colonies, which became states. Only The People have sovereign rights to create this law and authority to invest founders with the powers to frame it. Not citizens of the individual states, not ethnic groups, not even notorious "99%" are empowered to do so. It was not designed to serve "political elite" or "disenfranchised masses", Wall Street or Main Street, labor or capital, descendant of pilgrims or immigrant family landed yesterday on our shores. Rephrasing our beloved 16^th President, Preamble declares this new constitution to be Supreme Law of The People, by The People and for The People.

    And who were these mysterious gentlemen empowered to establish new Law? Well, certainly not angels. Some of them killed people. Some of them in good old times smuggled goods under the cover of night. And, yes, a lot of them had extramarital affairs. They practiced law, but none of them could brag of being brilliant constitutional law professor. Actually they didn't dare compliment themselves on proficiency in the constitutional law - they were creating it modestly.

Let's talk about them in details - not all of them will be flattering - in our next letter.

Letter2: Standing on the shoulders of giants