The Constitution ...

CreditCredit...Illustration by Ezekiel Aquino

The Constitution drastically needs an update, something Jefferson recommended back in the day as he, as architect and scientist, knew that nothing remains static and that change is a given, a reality the political powers at be seem to not understand in any way, shape or fashion. 

Written in the 1780s, it both enlightens and confounds. Its brilliance is undiminished, but the intervening years make it feel distant, at times impossibly so, challenging modern interpreters to understand what an 18th-century text means today.

Sadly, our attempt to understand the U.S. Constitution has too often become a mechanistic search for a correct answer, with little nuanced judgment. That is thanks to the ascendance of originalism on the Supreme Court. The originalist justices believe the meaning of the document was fixed when it was enacted, as opposed to living constitutionalists, who argue that the meaning and application of the Constitution should adapt to a changing world and not be bound by the judgments of men who lived centuries ago.

 Exactly.

In the letter, Jefferson states that each new generation has a right to choose for itself “the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness.” That every 20 years, the state constitution should be handed off to the next generation to amend and repair as they see fit.

Works for me.