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A BTT for the morning crowd. The further we get into this project the more it astounds me not that balance and compromise were constituents of the Constitutional structure - that much was obvious from the outset - but that the specific balances and compromises chosen have functioned as well as they have for so long. Nearly everyone involved on both sides of the debate appears to realize that the government must change, must accrete power, and the challenge becomes more one of forming that progress than preventing it altogether. That isn't surprising inasmuch as the very least the most conservative anti-Federalists expected was a major amendment of the Articles of Confederation.

It is not, therefore, the Constitution that is a "living document," it is the government it controls, and just as with cell growth, where the control mechanisms for growth are corrupted natural growth can become cancer. It isn't the happiest of metaphors but it'll do for now.

Interesting comment by you, and I like the anology.

But there is one thing about government cells that our standard cells do not have: government cells do not die. They survive and grow, and multiply. Government cells do not go through stages of life (infancy, adoescence, old age and termination), and they never are lean; they bloat with age.

Their life cycle is the citizens' fault. We should be weeding out the old growth by putting a sunset on every bureau and every office within that bureau. The same with every tax, tax raise, or regulation.

Our distancing ourselves from constitutional principles is this nation's biggest problem; and the reason is obvious: George Mason hit the nail on the head with this section of his "Virginia Declaration of Rights:"

XV That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."

It is time for our citizens to recoginize the importance of that last clause.

You’re right that it’s not a happy metaphor, but I haven’t seen it said better because it paints a most vivid picture.

It is not, therefore, the Constitution that is a "living document," it is the government it controls, and just as with cell growth, where the control mechanisms for growth are corrupted natural growth can become cancer. It isn't the happiest of metaphors but it'll do for now.

Good enough for me.

What strikes me reading this paper is the concept of negative checks. One of the ongoing conversations people were having at the time was how churches should be structured. Obviously the Episcopalian system had been discredited (Church of England). But there was serious competition between the Presbyterian vs. the Congregationalist styles. In both styles, people were expected to come together and agree upon what they thought was the truth.

However in our constitution, the branches had negative checks on each other. That is, they could only stop the other branches. The Judiciary or the Executive Branch couldn't make the Legislative Branch pass a law. The Legislative Branch required a super majority to override a veto. Neither could overturn a Supreme Court decision. That could only be done by a Constitutional Amendment.

Positive Agreement vs. Negative Disagreement. That idea for protecting liberty has stood the test of time.