Amendments To The Constitution

2 Pages 424 Words

Kathleen Sullivan writes about the recent increase in proposed amendments to the United States’ Constitution and how this could possibly be detrimental to our government in the future. She begins by mentioning how little the constitution has been amended in its history (only 27 times). This, she writes, is due to the level of difficulty that is attributed to this process. Using a system of checks and balances, there are only two ways to ratify an amendment. Either both houses of Congress must agree by a vote of two-thirds or two-thirds of the states may request a constitutional convention. Even after these processes are achieved, three fourths of the states must vote to ratify before the amendment is passed. According to Sullivan, it is this process that has preserved our Constitution’s “purity” and our government’s time tested way of enacting and maintaining laws. Obviously believing that frequent ratification of new amendments is a threat to our system, she gives us five reasons why our Constitution works as it exists today.
The first reason Sullivan gives for the Constitution’s continuing success is its stability. By this she means that we can rely on it being unchanging because it has been for over 200 years. Laws may change according to era and popularity but the basic principles set forth by our forefathers are still in tact.
Secondly, she mentions the rule of law. Basically, the Constitution was set forth to be a base on which to build a government. It was not meant to be specific. That task was to be left to individual state constitutions.
Sullivan also writes that the Constitution was written as a whole document. How things worked together was important. Adding amendments in a “piecemeal” fashion undermines the basic principles set forth. One example given is the amendment proposed to ban flag desecration. By banning protest (flag burning) it is inhibiting freedom of speech.
The fourth an...