The republicans sold out the Constitution in 1866.
You no doubt have in mind the Republican’s uncompromising and brutal vengeance toward the defeated South and their insistence that southern states had committed suicide and were no longer part of the nation. With that view, they attempted to give the South no more than the status of colonies and subject them to the whims of government power.
If that is your point, it is well made. It is something to keep in mind as we see our current day government leaders frantically attempt to correct what they view as a “fundamentally flawed Constitution” and to “remake” America. In that regard, to paraphrase the skipper of the Red October, frankly, I give them a 50/50 chance.
Does anyone have access to a dictionary from the time of our founders? I read somewhere that the word “regulate” at that time meant to “make regular” and not to make laws to govern that economic trades of the several states.