| | The Constitution did not spring from the forehead of Zeus whole and complete. I highly recommned the Avalon Project of Yale Law School. It has documents from The Code of Hamurabi and the Twelve Tablets of Rome to the Stamp Act and the Paris Treaty, it includes the many constitutions and charters of the colonial American period. (It goes up to today with "The Tenet Plan: Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and security plant, proposed by CIA director George Tenet.")
For instance, when someone says "Articles of Confederation" what do you think of? How about
The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England; May 19, 1643
The Articles of Confederation between the Plantations under the Government of the Massachusetts, the Plantations under the Government of New Plymouth, the Plantations under the Government of Connecticut, and the Government of New Haven with the Plantations in Combination therewith:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/art1613.asp
The colonists had a century and more of experience writing constitutions. By the time they drafted the one we know with a Capital-C, they had a lot of practice.
The American Constitution - A Documentary Record
Magna Carta, 1215
Mayflower Compact; November 11, 1620
Fundamental Orders of January 14, 1639
Fundamental Agreement, or Original Constitution of the Colony of New Haven, June 4, 1639
Agreement of the Settlers at Exeter in New Hampshire, 1639
The Combinations of the Inhabitants Upon the Piscataqua River for Government, October 22, 1641
The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England; May 19, 1643
Government of New Haven Colony; October 27 - November 6, 1643
The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina : March 1, 1669
The Fundamental Constitutions for the Province of East New Jersey in America, Anno Domini 1683
English Bill of Rights, 1689
Penn's Charter of Libertie - April 25, 1682
Frame of Government of Pennsylvania - May 5, 1682
Frame of Government of Pennsylvania - February 2, 1683
Frame of Government of Pennsylvania - 1696
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/constpap.asp
Avalon has much, much more than these above. Those are just the ones directly related to the Constitution we know. Gone now, perhaps, from the frequent editing and updating, a couple of years ago, there on Avalon, was a treaty between New England, New Jersey, and a couple of other entitites from about 1680, defining how they were going to combine their militas to fight Indians. It was excruciating in detail and lacking in general principles. That was then. A hundred years later, they had it down.
In order to understand the document, in order to be a true originalist, you need to understand its genesis.
This is the miracle of the internet. A genration ago, all we had commonly was The Federalist Papers. They are important, indeed. Behind them are 150 years of law making. Those five generations included the English Civil War, the Cromwell Dictatorship, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution, all before 1700. Long before 1787, American jurists and legalists had a lot of experience applying theory to necessity.
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 8/17, 6:35pm)
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It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. ... Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. ... For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.
