This is a bit much. It’s not the Bible, it’s just a bunch of compromises. It is also hardly in force anymore. All reading it does, to me, is remind me how little it is followed.
This is an interesting article but as the prior comment mentions, it is not the Bible of American juris prudence. The textbook companies greatly determine how Americans view the Constitution and for the last 50 years textbooks have referred to the Constitution as “a framework of government” a “skeleton” to have each generation apply new layers of skin over it. Lincoln forever changed the direction of the Constitution away from strict constructionism to loose constructionism. If he hadn’t we would have another type of country here today (read Harry Turtledove’s alternative history for one possible outcome). This gov’t will never become strict constructionist again because the politicians simply won’t allow it. Regardless of how much complaining the general population may do about it power is still held in the hands of a few and they will never give it up. They adapt the Constitution to fit their needs NOT ours.
The US constitution is *not* the “law of the land”. It is the organizational *limits* to the laws of the land.
It’s framework is like a fence surrounding government. Inside the fence, the government can build up as it needs. But outside the fence it is not theirs, so they at least are not supposed to build there.
For example, the 18th Amendment, Prohibition, by itself did nothing. Congress had to pass an enabling act, the Volstead Act, so that the government could enforce the 18th Amendment. By the time they did so, Prohibition had fallen out of favor as a bad idea, so congress intentionally made Volstead very weak and ill-funded.