What is the Key to the Success of the Constitution of the United States?
Here’s what the late Antonin Scalia gave as the answer
Today is Constitution Day for the United States of America.
It was on September 17, 1787 that the Constitutional Convention concluded its business and sent to the States the document that would become the longest serving written constitution in world history.
That convention was an assembly of delegates from every U.S. state (except Rhode Island) charged with suggesting improvements to the Articles of Confederation, the nation’s first governing document. The Articles had proven to be ineffectual and the new nation was on the verge of falling apart. The delegates chose to toss out the Articles altogether and send to the American people an entirely new option.
That option was the Constitution of the United States.
Submitted to the states in 1787, it was ultimately ratified and in effect by 1789. George Washington became the first President of the United States under the new Constitution. And a Bill of Rights was added in 1791. These were the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
In total, there have been twenty-seven amendments to the Constitution, some of them striking down or significantly altering…
