The next 250th to celebrate
On party planning, James Madison, and why marking the semiquincentennial of the Constitution should be even bigger than 250 years of independence
Whatever one may think about the proceedings surrounding the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the United States still has a major semiquincentennial event to celebrate (and one for which planning should begin immediately): The one commemorating the Constitution. We could even cheat a little and celebrate twice: Once in 2037 for the Constitutional Convention, and another in 2039 to mark when the document became the law of the land.
■ Many nations have declared independence. Few have maintained a continuous democratic regime without interruption for longer than a century. And the US Constitution deserves vociferous praise, not because it is, was, or ever will be perfect, but because it contains both a brilliant perpetual framework for checks and balances and a humble acknowledgment of its own need for evolution and reform through the amendment process.
■ Scalability is the real brilliance of the Constitution. It’s not only a document fit for 4 million people (the census-counted population in 1790), it’s fit for 400 million or more, so long as we take care to preserve the framework. Far from decrying the Constitution (as some radicals are inclined to do), we should spend the next decade or so reviving our appreciation for what James Madison and his co-creators established.
■ Congress, for instance, should be larger. The House should probably have double its current membership, allowing for closer representation, smaller election stakes, and a better diversity of membership (not just in terms like ethnicity or gender, but in life experience, vocation, and education). Congress should also act like it belongs in Article I of the Constitution, not in the back seat.
■ Regional, voluntary inter-state cooperation ought to happen more, as well. The Constitution contains several provisions meant to keep one region from dominating the Union, but it doesn’t prohibit states with common interests from coordinating among themselves. Nearly any multi-state region you could identify contains more Americans than the entire country held in 1790, and we ought to expect real state capacity not just from the Federal government, but from the individual states themselves (and from clusters of them). Multistate arrangements shouldn’t be limited to lotteries and NCAA conferences. We ought to consider having regional weather services, regional scientific alliances, and regional retirement-savings programs, among many other public goods. Washington shouldn’t be a chokepoint for worthwhile endeavors.
■ If we truly want to reinforce the good that comes from scalability, then states ought to be the primary level for hammering out most truly contentious policies. Really divisive arguments shouldn’t be subject to wild swings due to changes in the White House, the Capitol, or the Supreme Court. The national government ought to strive for less enforced uniformity and more effective delivery of what really demands a national scale. We should know more of our governors and fewer of our Senators, because state-level innovation and execution should be just that good.
■ When officers of the military and of the Federal government swear to support and defend the Constitution, not only should they mean it, the rest of us should hold them to their word. We place too much strain on the Constitutional order when we foolishly act like the quadrennial Presidential election is some kind of parliamentary mandate. Reaching 250 years of Constitutional order will be a milestone well worth celebrating, but as with any good celebration, we ought to do a bit of housekeeping first.
