It is a curious fact that Great Britain – famous for the stability of its political system – does not have a written constitution. Furthermore, British leaders treat the very idea of a written constitution with disdain verging on contempt.
However, Great Britain does have a Constitution which is referred to frequently. By their Constitution, the British mean the unstated assumption that Great Britain is implicitly governed by three separate entities, each with its own traditional powers.
With canny and almost perverse wisdom, the British have instinctively appreciated that written Constitutions are fictional devices that in no way impede or prevent anything from happening. They allow everything. That is the true essence of a written constitution.
The Soviet Union had a written constitution more glorious and democratic than anything our cynical Founding Fathers would have conceived. Yet it allowed and provided cover for the enforced starvation of eight million people – men, women, and children. It also gave a legal basis for the murder of millions in forced labor camps.
The universally celebrated American Constitution, augmented by amendments, and interpreted by the Supreme Court, has allowed social changes in areas that would have confounded, appalled, and repelled its original authors. We are entering a period in which factionalism, irrationality, and declamations have replaced what was once called “reasoned thought” or “rational thinking.”
The two most powerful stylists of English prose this nation has ever produced both grew up in extreme poverty – one on the Virginia frontier, the other in Illinois. With limited formal education, each had the ability of re-reading the same book, over and over again, as they had only a few books in boyhood. In the case of John Marshall, it was John Dryden’s poetry, then the most beloved of English poets. Lincoln had six books, which included Pilgrim’s Progress and Aesop’s Fables.
Armed with their memorized familiarity with those works, these men achieved the two highest positions in the United States. Relying entirely on a foundation of English prose and prosody, each made of the American Constitution the document he wanted it to be.
Benito Rakower, Ed.D., was educated at Queens College and Harvard University, where he received a doctorate in the teaching of English. Before getting his degree at Harvard, Professor Rakower was trained professionally at the piano in German Baroque and French repertoire. This semester Dr. Rakower is teaching a course, “Against the Grain: Ordinary Beginnings With Extraorinary Outcomes,” which will begin on Friday, Jan. 15 at 1:30 p.m.
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