On Mar 18, 2008, at 5:17 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>> ...a Constitution that had at is very core the
>> ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that
>> promised
>> its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should
>> be perfected over time."
>>
But focusing on use of the notion "perfectability" is to miss the glaring falsehood in that sentence. The Preamble does speak of liberty, justice, and "a more perfect union." But nowhere, not in the core, not in the preamble, not anywhere else, does the Constitution endorse "equal citizenship under the law." Not for women, not for Indians, not for slaves, not even for poor whites. Indeed, the Constitution was designed, in large measure, as a barrier to equal citizenship--and it still, to some extent, serves that original purpose.
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to be called Zeus."
Herakleitos of Ephesos