Program Information

The delegates of Philadelphia were statesmen. They understood the needs of the nation. But they also had to take the package back to their respective states and sell it.

The United States Constitution has been the foundation for the United States government and its citizens for over two hundred years. Many people believe it is the “gold standard” for fledgling democracies all over the world. It calls for the citizens to be active and for government to be accountable to those they govern. Many historians believe the Constitution has made our nation as successful and as powerful as it is; however, many of our citizens have not read or do not understand the Constitution and the foundation of our government. “Questioning the Constitution” looks at the development of the constitution, how it has been interpreted and questions whether the constitution should be reformed. This one-hour documentary was produced by WCVE PBS in partnership with the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Transcript

HOWARD: The delegates of Philadelphia were on the one hand, I think, statesmen. They understood the needs of the nation. But they also had to take the package back to their respective states and sell it. And the states were required to ratify the Constitution if it was going to go into effect. The Philadelphia convention didn’t provide for a Bill of Rights. The so-called Anti-Federalists, those who were opposed to the new Constitution, they thought it dangerous and tyrannical, seized on the issue of the lack of a Bill of Rights. Madison and the other proponents of ratification were obliged to agree, look, just let’s ratify the Constitution, and we will undertake to add a Bill of Rights. It was a very close call. I mean, Virginia and New York nearly defeated it. If Virginia and New York had not ratified, they would be obliged to go back to the drafting board, and it’s not at all clear that a second time around they could have actually brought a Constitution into being. So the states did ratify it at the first Congress. Madison, as a member of that Congress, was as good as his word. He undertook to see that a Bill of Rights was proposed. Of course, those were Amendments that had to be then also ratified by the states, but they were. So that’s how the Bill of Rights came into being. And we, we simply take them for granted as surely they must have been there from the start.

WEICKER: Constitution and Constitutional law ought to be given in every high school in the United States, and I mean that. I made that point during the Watergate hearings, when we’d have all these officers of the United States government, military and civilians, stand up there that had gone ahead and flouted the Constitution in every which way. And I asked them, “Did you ever read the Constitution?” And of course, they’re “No.” Well, here are men that raise, and women that raise their right hand swearing to uphold the Constitution, which they’ve never read. So the answer is that’s an enormously important part of anything that we do for the future is teach our young people the Constitution. Most people out there don’t have the foggiest idea of what it’s all about.

You cannot write a law that’s going to stop any sort of illegal behavior. You might make it more difficult, but if people want to misbehave, they’re gonna misbehave. It’s up to those that are responsible for oversight for enforcing the law to do that. And that was a great test. Had Richard Nixon succeeded and the committee, that Senate and House, failed we would have been a pretty sad state of affairs here in the United States. We made a conscious decision that our politics wasn’t going to sink to his level and we weren’t going to allow him to trample the Constitution. The whole thing was about presidential power. And going ahead and not allowing him to, to exceed his powers. Issue after issue that was raised, whether it was the break-ins or the spying, or the language of the President himself and the orders of the President, the disregard of justice, I mean, just flew in the face of the entire Constitution of the United States. And it was in that broad sense, really, that Richard Nixon was condemned. Never mind, any specific act. And that’s what it ended up being was condemnation, because of course he escaped impeachment.

NIXON: I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.

WEICKER: What did we learn? I don’t think we learned very much and we were right back at the same old stand. Whether it’s Mr. Regan and Iran-Contra. Or whether it was the recent actions of George W. Bush. Look, it requires constant vigilance. This thing does not carry itself. It’s for us, and it’s for us to go ahead and keep it as it was intended.

STEELE: One of the most important duties you have is to first, I think, understand the documents that gives you the rights that you claim you need, that you want, that you’re entitled to. And understand why that is, and how that comes about.

It’s a great process, I think. I’ve just, you know, I’m kinda old-fashioned that way. I’m just. You know, I just. It works. Why you, why you wanna change it? It works. Yeah, I’m sure there’re decisions in that that the Supreme Court will interpret, and in my view misread in the Constitution. For example, with respect to Roe v. Wade. This whole privacy right does not exist in my view in the Constitution. That’s the, the upside of it is that you get to go back and forth and over time, uh, those hot issues, you know Roe vs. Wade from ’73, will get worked out. Here we are, some 35 plus years later, um, and people’s attitudes and perceptions have changed and are changing. That’s a living debate that we can have. I don’t need to change the Constitution to prove the point one way or the other.

Virginia Standards