Well, and happy Independence Day, Gentle Readers all. It’s been some 237 years since the residents of this region declared themselves independent from their nonresident government, and, oddly enough, made it stick.\n\n
When the rebellion succeeded, they managed to putter along with a constitution of sorts, but it didn’t last long. A few years later (17 September 1787, to be exact), work was finished on a new Constitution, and that one stuck, and how! The area (and population) under it grew, and grew and grew, and times changed, in that way they have of changing, and the Constitution has been tweaked a few times, but essentially, it’s the same document. Have you ever thought about how unlikely that is?\n\n
To be specific: We still have a lower and an upper legislative House, the lower apportioned by population and the upper by geography. Except for the popular election of Senators, the terms or method of choosing legislators hasn’t changed. The method for choosing the President and Vice-President needed some tweaking, which was done 199 years ago, and later a limit was set to the length of time a President can serve. The constitutional duties of the President and Vice-President haven’t changed at all, although the whole succession thing needed to be cleared up. On the judicial side, almost nothing at all has changed. Of course, either explicitly or not, the qualifications for all federal offices used to have restrictions of race, sex, creed and means, which are not there now (at least legally). Still and all, it’s the same setup under which Henry Clay became Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1811; and John Marshall became Chief Justice.\n\n
Think about that: the method for choosing the federal legislature, executive, and judiciary, and the duties of federal officers have changed negligibly over the last two hundred years. Only one change could be considered major: the method of election for Senators. Other than that, we have the same setup that they had in 1805.\n\n
England just changed their Upper House a few years ago. France has gone through republics and dictatorships. Germany, well, we know about Germany. Russia went Bolshevik and then back; the ink is still wet on their constitution. China? Fifty years or so. A trifle longer for Japan (I don’t actually know whether there have been more recent changes in their federal structure). Poland didn’t exist (as a federal entity) a hundred years ago, nor did India, Brazil, or Rhodesia (hee hee). Is there a country whose essential government mechanism has remained unchanged for even the last hundred years? Has there ever<\/i> been a nation whose selection and duties of legislators, the chief executive and the high court remained in place for two hundred years?\n\n
Change is the natural state of the world; fast or slow, it happens. I wouldn’t wager that the United States will make it a hundred more years under its current Constitution. On the other hand, who would have guessed, in 1787, that two hundred and sixteen years later, some guy would be writing up an analysis of the candidates for the 2004 election, under a government that James Madison would recognize far more easily than Pitt would recognize Blair’s England?\n\n
Just some thoughts for the Fourth of July. Enjoy it, all.\n\n
Redintegro Iraq,
\n-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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