(1) These magnificently punctilious grammarians "also" crafted one of the greatest (and most concise) literary masterpieces in the history of the English language.
(2) What is increasingly less appreciated in our own time is that the Framers' design was fundamentally premised on a system of SELF-government. Something that had never, ever been seen in the world before, a world in which priests and monarchs, et al., had been accepted as the necessary "intercessors" between God and Man, just to get quite normal things done in daily existence, since most people — living in what Eric Vöegelin has described as the Ecumenic Age, in which "primitive" and "tribal" forms of existence were increasingly displaced by "organizational principles" to be contrived by an expert (priestly–political–bureaucratic) class; and then from there, imposed direct pressure on the "subject" people "from on-high," whether the pressured people liked it or not. Historically speaking, they usually didn't.
[N.B.: The events we revere and remember at Christmas took place in precisely such a milieu, or "crucible" of forces.... ]
Yet the Framers, being of Christian temperament, believed in (or as some might have termed it, recognized the "self-evident truth" of) human free will. Thus, to me it seems that, bottom line, what the Framers proposed was that Man should live in openness to God, exercise/enjoy the gifts that God gave him, and live in the virtue of God's love and justice....
Such a view clearly has Judeo-Christian roots, and roots in classical Greece, as well. Maybe this latter aspect could be a topic for another time.
It is my view that "self-government" is rooted in two moral qualities, the first being the ability to govern oneself, the desire and willingness to govern oneself, and the second being respect for neighbor which is in part how "love thy neighbor" plays itself out in the practical world.
Freedom requires a moral center of gravity in a society or the society ceases to be free, in fact in the absence of a generalized moral sense freedom becomes an unbearable burden and people will gladly shed it, they will demand that their betters relieve them of it.
Loving obedience to God, and love of neighbor are the twin roots of both rule of law and constitutional liberty. When they atrophy freedom shrivels and dies.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. – Matthew 22:37-40
That is so lost on so many today. Self government evolved here of necessity. Small bands of colonists in the wilderness had little choice but to band together. England was embroiled in civil wars for much of the 17th century and largely ignored the colonial's political evolution. The French knew England would be of little help and paid various indian tribes to attack us. Things were so bad that a few northeastern states formed a confederacy for self defense. American self government was so advanced by the mid 18th Century that eventual independence was anticipated by many here and in England.