How to Take the Constitution Seriously by Yuval Levin (Wonderful overview of of themes similar to Yural Levin's book American Covenant)
"“What is the Constitution?” is a strange question. On its face, the US Constitution is a fairly short document, about 7,500 words with all the amendments, that describes the goals, powers, institutions, and key rules of a system of government. But of course, the Constitution is more than a document. It is also that system of government itself, brought into being bythe words on the page but embodied in a set of offices, officials, laws, norms, habits, and traditions. It is the essence of the American regime, which is by now the world’s oldest and most durable democratic republic. And it decisively shapes the political ethos of our society and even the character and dispositions of the American people. The Constitution can be all these things because it is in essence a framework—a structure or form that matches means to ends.
To try to capture its key facets, we can think about the US Constitution roughly as composing a five-part framework: It is a legal framework, a policymaking framework, an institutional framework, a political framework, and a framework for union and unity.
Click here to read the brief lecture - it's really enlightening!
This was a really enlightening, readable, analysis of how we should construe the U.S. Constitution, as something much greater than a set of laws!
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