[ctylor]

I finished the course on Constitutional history, and what we see is a consistent and concerted trend by all three branches of the central government to interpret the constitution in the broadest possible way, or the most centralizing way. Obviously Abraham Lincoln was a big deal when he killed federalism and reconstructed it as a nationalist state, but it is clear those tendencies were there from the beginning, even from George Washington, and after Lincoln, just keep ratcheting up till we get a Teddy Roosevelt or a Woodrow Wilson or a FDR.

I thought it would be fun to ask the instructors of this course, off the top of their heads and mostly just for fun, what portions of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights are still scrupulously enforced (properly) as according to the original intent of the Framers and ratifiers of the constitution.

The simplest example I can think of is that the Presidential term shall be 4 years in length. I know it’s not a lot, but what other clauses are still accurately enforced and believed in by the three branches of government?

[Brion McClanahan]

According to the Constitution as ratified, very little, with the exception of term lengths, as you suggested. In fact, I would suggest that the ratified Constitution died in 1789 with the Judiciary Act. You had several proponents of the document become arch-Jeffersonians in the early federal period when they realized that others lied about ratification, John Dickinson most prominent among them.

[gutzmank]

I agree: very little. I wrote a book chronicling this development from start to finish, THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION, and Tom Woods and I wrote a book that explains where we currently stand, WHO KILLED THE CONSTITUTION?

[Author]

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