•At 23 through 27,... DeWitt insists on nailing down the specific language now before those favoring more flexible language deploy the weasel words. This is a New England attorney pointing out that the reputation of the great men at the Convention does not necessarily justify a quick decision without thorough consideration. How correct was he? Was his suspicion justified, and why?
I wonder if he had ever been involved in taking a deposition that was sidetracked by trying to parse the word 'is'. He was correct in his understanding that, although the authors were men of honor, it would be incorrect to assume that future office holders would be of the same caliber.
•At 37 through 50, there is the bill of particulars that reads like an indictment or a plaintiff’s list for causes of action. One can imagine proponents of the Constitution reading this text and squirming. Taking these points as particulars, to what degree was DeWitt right or wrong?
I would like to make an observation at this point. The discussion is about the origin of our Constitution and also the implementation of it. Form and function if I may borrow from an earlier chapter. I find it somewhat difficult to separate the two in order to analyze the pertinent points being made. We have the advantage of over two hundred years of hindsight, the effect is sure to skew our perspective. These men, if they somehow appeared today, might not be as quick to condemn our current form of government, instead looking to the failure of 'We the People' to pursue the 'perfection of government'. Their assumption seems to be that it is human nature to want to control your own life. Observation of todays society seems to show that people are more interested in controlling others than themselves.
Our concept of honor has fallen mightily in that we as a people are willing to live with more corruption than earlier generations would have. A British PM caught parsing the meaning of "is" would have been turned out by his party whip in the House of Commons and the party's largest donors and fundraisers.
The only Framer who would have laughed at Clinton's exploits in the bedroom and legal arena would have been Aaron Burr, who was the Bill Clinton of his era. Even Burr would have cautioned him to put on a diffferent public face than the one he showed.
These men, if they somehow appeared today, might not be as quick to condemn our current form of government, instead looking to the failure of 'We the People' to pursue the 'perfection of government'.
Alexander Hamilton and John Jay would be quite comfortable under today's system, especially Hamilton, who thought that whatever was good for Wall Street was good for America. We will see some of that on Monday.