This document was written by Robert Artigiani, historian, my friend
As the conventions get underway, we can be sure there will be lots of talk about the Constitution. Sadly, very little of it will have much to do with the actual document. Orators will be claiming they are fiercely and uncompromisingly devoted to the core beliefs and behaviors enshrined in the Constitution. Yet the document which they pledge to defend and support prescribes no beliefs or behaviors. That is mostly because the Framers could not agree about "fundamentals." But divisions were tearing their Confederation apart, and they had to produce something Americans could rally around. So, the Framers settled for forging a tool Americans could use to define themselves by passing, applying, and adjudicating laws. In other words, rather than a blueprint laying out what America was supposed to be, the Constitution is essentially a set of procedures by which Americans could decide who they are and what they do.
Knowing they had to get the Constitution approved by the people, the Framers were careful about what procedures were constituted. The people were rightly concerned about that because the laws and their applications would create and preserve the American society in which they lived. Thus, the rules for making rules had to be fair, for the laws they produced would only be obeyed if every kind of American had a say in their content. Although the Framers fell far short of this goal by our standards, they at least planted the seed. Regardless, it is these procedures – not particular beliefs or behaviors – that we swear or affirm to support and defend.
Realizing this should take some of the passion out of contemporary politics, for the Constitution commits no one to an uncompromisable outcome. Laws may bring outcomes closer to factional goals. But since commitment is to the practice of making, applying, and adjudicating laws, results produced by Constitutional procedures can always be revisited. No loss has to be permanent. Nor can a winning faction impose a transcendent set of beliefs to institutionalize a fixed societal state. Regardless of particular outcomes, all can still support Constitutional procedures because they give contestants an even chance.
Because the rules of procedure were written by the Framers, Originalists should play by them. And since those rules enable change, Living Constitutionalists can support them as enthusiastically. Moreover, the Framers thought people are shaped by the tools they use. Thus, using the Constitution's procedural rules should produce people who believe in playing fairly. But for their vision to unite us, we need to realize the nation is more important than the party, the general welfare matters more than individual profits. As the NFL puts it, regardless of how much teams want to win, the game itself must be protected. To parody Jefferson's inaugural speech: by realizing what the Constitution is, we can all be Originalists and all be Living Constitutionalists. Even partisan convention orators should be willing to agree to that.
