as the Supreme Court decision in *Ex Parte Milligan* (1866) - proceeding for a writ of habeus corpus in which justices unanimously ruled that a military tribunal had no legal authority to try a man who was not in and had never served in military - indicated:
'The Constitution is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men at all times and under all circumstances.'
and as Charles Miller, in _The Supreme Court and the Uses of History_ (1969), asserts (p. 181):
'In the beginning was the Constitution; and the Constitution was with the Founding Fathers; and the Constitution was the Founding Fathers. This, without much exaggeration...describes the relationship between the American attitudes toward history and toward the Constitution.'
so much for constitution as basis of government appropriate to market capitalist economy and protection of highly unequal class structure, that secures control, use, disposal, and enjoyment of economic and productive assets in hands of few, and that offers those with predominant economic power the freedom to - in Adam Smith's words - 'truck, barter, and exchange'... Michael Hoover