Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

At their essence, people are violent, and they would kill each other if they thought they could get away with it; The Constitution is mostly an agreement to prevent that from happening, but it also contains some aspirational concepts. It says in the Preample,”establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity;” but those goals aren't really clarified in the actual Articles that were originally ratified. Those details were instead explained in the first 10 amendments to The Constitution, called the Bill of Rights, which didn't come along until 2 years later.

Without the Bill of Rights, the original Articles don’t say much, mostly about the bureaucracy of government, with little to do with the people The Constitution was imagined for. The Articles outlined how Senators were selected, since changed; how the census was counted, since changed; and Habeas Corpus, the right of charges against you to be reviewed by a judge, which has also since changed. They had to be wishy-washy like that to be acceptable at the time to the finicky States. Jefferson & Madison's intention was to get The Constitution adopted then add the meat in the amendments, specifically the Bill of Rights; in fact, they promised them behind the scenes. The Bill of Rights is where you get your Freedom of Speech, your protection from government search & seizure, your protection in court, and your gun ownership. Since then, many more Amendments have been added but the the Bill of Rights is what most people think of as The Constitution.