Article by Edwin Meese III
As you know, recently, in the East Room of the White House, a new Chief Justice and a new Justice of the Supreme Court were sworn in—William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia, respectively. After both men had taken their oaths to support the Constitution, President Reagan reflected on what he called the “‘inspired wisdom”’ of our Constitution:
Hamilton, Jefferson and all the Founding Fathers recognized that the Constitution is the supreme and ultimate expression of the will of the American people. They saw that no one in office could remain above it, if freedom were to survive through the ages. They understood that, in the words of James Madison, if “the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation . . . [is] not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a . . . faithful exercise of its powers.”'
In concluding, the President repeated a warning given by Daniel Webster more than a century ago. It is a thought especially worth remembering as we approach the bicentennial anniversary of our Constitution:
Miracles do not cluster. . . . Hold on to the Constitution of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands—what has happened once in 6,000 years may never happen again. Hold on to your Constitution, for if the American Constitution shall fall there will be anarchy throughout the world.
During its nearly two hundred years, the Constitution, which Gladstone pronounced “the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man,”' has been reflected upon and argued about from many perspectives by great men and lesser ones. The scrutiny has not always been friendly. The debates over ratification, for example, were often rancorous, and scorn was poured on many of the constitutional provisions devised by the Federal Convention in 1787. The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists were, to say the very least, in notable disagreement. Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, a leading Anti-Federalist, was convinced, for example, that the new Constitution was “in its first principles, [most] highly and dangerously oligarchic.”' He feared, as did a good many others, for the fate of democratic government under so powerful an instrument. Still others thought it unlikely that so large a nation could survive without explicit provision for cultivating civic virtue among the citizens. The critics of the proposed Constitution had serious reservations about this new enterprise in popular government, an effort even the friends of the Constitution conceded was a novel experiment.
About the Author
Edwin Meese III. Attorney General of the United States.
Citation
61 Tul. L. Rev. 979 (1987)