Nothing Human Can Be Perfect: Constitutional Change and the Limits of the Remedies Thereafter

Abstract

Part III of the text moves from focusing on the problems inherent in the structure the Framers adopted (Part I) and the ways our foremothers and fathers have tried to mitigate them (Part II) to focusing on potential remedies or reforms that can be adopted to address them. To this end, the first chapter in this section, Chapter 9 (“Nothing Human Can Be Perfect: Constitutional Change and the Limits of the Remedies Thereafter”), begins by noting that the Framers were the first to acknowledge that the Constitution was flawed. In recognition of these defects, they took the somewhat unusual (although not unprecedented) step of including in Article V methods for amendment. As in the case of our first constitution, however, it is still difficult to revise; so much so that in the post-Civil War period it has only been done successfully twelve times, two of which cancelled each other out. As of this writing, the document has not been amended since the early 1990s. Moreover, of those amendments that have been adopted, few concern the type of structural changes that this book is concerned with. The discussion ends with a recognition that Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine were two of the Framers who proposed a mechanism for reconstitution that was not included in the Constitution, but is worth consideration today.