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"Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of nineteen years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right. It may be said, that the succeeding generation exercising, in fact, the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the constitution or law had been expressly limited to nineteen years only. In the first place, this objection admits the right, in proposing an equivalent. But the power of repeal is not an equivalent. It might be, indeed, if every form of government were so perfectly contrived, that the will of the majority could always be obtained, fairly and without impediment. But this is true of no form. The people cannot assemble themselves; their representation is unequal and vicious. Various checks are opposed to every legislative proposition. Factions get possession of the public councils, bribery corrupts them, personal interests lead them astray from the general interests of their constituents; and other impediments arise, so as to prove to every practical man, that a law of limited duration is much more manageable than one which needs a repeal."

The idea that institutions established for the use of the nation cannot be touched nor modified even to make them answer their end because of rights gratuitously supposed in those employed to manage them in trust for the public, may perhaps be a salutary provision against the abuses of a monarch but is most absurd against the nation itself. Yet our lawyers and priests generally inculcate this doctrine and suppose that preceding generations held the earth more freely than we do, had a right to impose laws on us unalterable by ourselves, and that we in like manner can make laws and impose burdens on future generations which they will have no right to alter; in fine, that the earth belongs to the dead and not the living."

- Thomas Jefferson

Was he right, Dakka? What's your opinion?

Was this meant for off topic?

Yep! Whoops. Mods help me, lol!

For when this gets moved to off-topic


Quite frankly, he was right and wrong.

Ideally, we could revisit things periodically to revise them. But that is neither practical nor realistic in any sort of political environment. It would devolve into Mob rule and the whims of such.

Better to have an unchanging ideal that we can have as an unwavering anchor even if its not perfect. A slightly imperfect stability is better than something which would only devolve into chaos.

When you are navigating, you must have a fixed point to steer yourself by. If your point of reference changes you will go off course.

If inalienable rights are merely granted by popular vote are they inalienable?

I think we have a good balance. We have a constitution that lays the foundation for our laws, but which also includes the rules for changing the constitution.

If we wouldn't have the 27 Amendments there could be a better argument that the Constitution is broken, and even though we don't rewrite the Constitution every 19 years they show that we have a Constitution that can be changed if desired.

There are no rights, there are only privileges (watch George Carlin's video on YouTube titled "you have no rights" for an excellent explanation).

Anyway, yes, there is a certain attitude among politicians to rigidly cling to ingrained doctrine, traditions, and laws, because, after all, that's the source of their power.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Ideally, we could revisit things periodically to revise them. But that is neither practical nor realistic in any sort of political environment. It would devolve into Mob rule and the whims of such.

Lets be real here, Jefferson was not talking about putting the Constitution up for popular referendum. He was talking about lawmakers being forced to revisit the Constitution every 19 years; a process that, in all likelihood, would lead to the old document being renewed. Hardly a situation that would likely devolve into mob rule.

Truthfully the strongest criticism of his position is that it would simply be a waste of time.

If the Constitution was revised every 19 years(what an odd number to pick) it would be the basis of all our elections. It would be Mob rule by proxy as only the candidates following the whims of the crowd would win the elections to revise the document.

US of A would be so soup sandwich if we revised the Constitution every 19 years.

Now I'm super curious about the 19 years thing. Seems like such a weird number to choose.

In general I definitely agree that there are sections of the constitution that could use tightening up to match modern sensibilities and culture.

It's a great document, and model for government, but it's not stone tablets handed down from the mount - it was written by men, men who were products of their time; and that was a time that was very different than ours - and they knew that, which is why they baked-in a system to change it that was difficult but not insurmountable.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Now I'm super curious about the 19 years thing. Seems like such a weird number to choose.

I'm guessing it's related to the election cycles of various branches. Once a certain number of senators, representatives, presidents, etc have served their terms, the next batch comes in and reviews how everything worked. It's an odd number of years, so that it's during everyone's term rather than in the middle of elections.

Just a guess, though. Not sure if the math actually pans out to make sense.

Since its an odd number it would cycle between being an election year and not. If you wanted to keep it always between elections it would have to be an even number of years.

Three POTUS down and the fourth POTUS amends the Constitution?

Maybe, although the 3 in between would probably be viewed as Lame Duck presidents.

Jefferson's first quote is arbitrary and silly.

His second is on the money. Frankly, our constitution is loose enough that we can just decide certain lines mean different things at different times.

Jefferson's idea is really very silly. It's chasing a fairly goofy notion of freedom and taken it to the nth degree, without any understanding or regard given to basic practicalities of statehood and the importance of maintaining consistent laws and institutions.

This isn't to have a dig at Thomas Jefferson, who was writing in the earliest days of one of the first truly modern governments. He simply didn't know what the experiences of the next 200 years would make clear. It's like that famous quote "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers", from IBM President Thomas Watson*. Smart people operating in wholly new things will often make predictions that turn out to be way off base... but it's a bit of a worry when people in the modern age read something like that and can't immediately see what's wrong with it.





*Maybe he didn't actually say this. It might have been another person working in early computers, or maybe it was just made up by someone. Just go with the example anyway, yeah?

 dogma wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Ideally, we could revisit things periodically to revise them. But that is neither practical nor realistic in any sort of political environment. It would devolve into Mob rule and the whims of such.

Lets be real here, Jefferson was not talking about putting the Constitution up for popular referendum. He was talking about lawmakers being forced to revisit the Constitution every 19 years; a process that, in all likelihood, would lead to the old document being renewed. Hardly a situation that would likely devolve into mob rule.

Truthfully the strongest criticism of his position is that it would simply be a waste of time.

If the Constitution had been revisited every 19 years there would be an interest scenario in the 1850s-1860s. We would have been several nations by now, all ruled by the benevolent greatness that is Texas.

As somebody said earlier, there's no need for a re-write thanks to the 2/3rds clause.

The other day, somebody was asking me about gun control and the 2nd amendment, and they couldn't believe it when I told them the 2nd amendment could be scrapped if America wished it so.

I also mentioned there's probably more chance of me becoming US president than that happening.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
If inalienable rights are merely granted by popular vote are they inalienable?

Not all rights are inalienable. Only certain ones. Like Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of women with questionable judgement.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

 Grey Templar wrote:
Now I'm super curious about the 19 years thing. Seems like such a weird number to choose.

It's kind of explained in the same quote: 19 years is a generation, the time it would take for their kids to grow up and have a say in how the laws that govern them should be written.

It is a very democratic thing to do, to put up the constitution for vote every generation.
How can a constitution be democratic if the people don't get to have a say about it?
Isn't that what he wants to say?

It *is* democratic. It's just not all that easy to make changes.

That's a good thing.

 whembly wrote:
It *is* democratic. It's just not all that easy to make changes.

That's a good thing.

But I thought democracy is a good thing?

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 whembly wrote:
It *is* democratic. It's just not all that easy to make changes.

That's a good thing.

But I thought democracy is a good thing?

Depends on what form it takes.

Pure populist vote is just tyranny of the majority. And thats a bad thing.

If King George had listened to Edmund Burke, we wouldn't be wasting our time talking about the US constitution

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
If inalienable rights are merely granted by popular vote are they inalienable?

Good Ol' TJ wrote:"A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.

So I would assume TJ would believe that any 'new' constitution MUST protect those rights. Else he would have been advocating a return to tyranny every 19 years, since the first constitution was a result of winning independence from tyranny. Scrapping it in whole without protecting the basic rights would not have been something a liberty minded TJ would have approved of.

Then he probably meant for only the original document to be up for discussion. Not the Bill of Rights.

Things to ponder...

Jefferson was VERY much a staunch believer in the ideal and idea of Liberty. He did not want one generation to suffer because of what their predecessors wrote into law.

But his ideal of Liberty very much included those inalienable rights, and face it, Liberty when it boils down to it is freedom, the freedom to strive and to fail and to make your choices and suffer the consequences.

Many folks (and I include the OP and Justice Ginsburg here) bring up that particular quote in order to justify a belief the Constitution is out dated and should not be adhered to, with the argument being 'Even Ol' TJ would agree!'

BUT, these same folks tend to not want to replace it with something that guarantees TJs ideas of liberty, but with something that gives the Federal Gov't more control over individuals and the states. It is progressive trick. It is used to defend intents and acts TJ would have been appalled at.

Did Jefferson have a point? Perhaps. And if he saw today's Federal Gov't even in today's context/world, I suspect he would be for starting over. But not in the way progressives would have us start over.