Guest post by Cathy Peschke of Citizens for Reasonable and Fair Taxes:
When I read Ms. Piotrow’s letter to the editor I was astounded and left speechless. Then I realized her letter to the editor was a living document open to interpretation and could change meaning with time. What Ms. Piotrow really meant to say is that she has lived in a cloistered world surrounded by people who do not believe in the rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Further, her elitist progressive big government view of the world is far better then that envisioned by the Founding Fathers of this great Nation. She also believes that simple people can not lead their own lives without direction of a large centralized government.
You are right Ms. Piotrow, our Founders did believe the Constitution was a living document. However, the process of change was only to occur through amendments, not selective interpretation. Our Founding Fathers did not look at the future to create a new government as you stated but to history; they choose a Republic because throughout history Democracies have failed.
Funny that Ms. Piotrow (Emily’s List Contributor, Former Director of International Planned Parenthood and Director of the Population Crisis Committee) sees that the constitution as a living document but does not see human fetuses as living beings worth protecting. There is no telling how many lives have been lost over the last 40 years due to Ms. Piotrow belief in abortion to solve the so called "Population Crisis", please do not try to kill the Constitution as well Ms. Piotrow.
Ms. Piotrow I realize that your letter is not a living LTE left open to change as I see fit and neither is our Constitution.
Catherine Peschke
Citizens for Reasonable and Fair Taxes
Letter to the Editor (InterTown Record on January 11, 2011):
The Constitution is a Living Document
Many People are quoting Thomas Jefferson These days a an advocate of small government, less regulation, and low taxes; but Thomas Jefferson often did not match his eloquent words with consistent actions.
In the Declaration of Independence, his eloquent defense of the inalienable rights of "life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" did not apply to the slaves of Africa. Fear of a strong central government and national regulations on his part and on that of many other Southerners was related to their fear that a stronger central government might interfere with their view of slaves as personal property.
More to the point of Jefferson favoring less government, let me quote from Ron Chernow’s recent definitive biography of Alexander Hamilton with respect to the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson’s most significant act as President:
Hamilton was ruefully amused that Jefferson, the strict constructionist, committed a breathtaking act of executive power that exceeded anything contemplated in the Constitution. To justify his audacity, the President invoked the doctrine of implied powers first articulated by Alexander Hamilton. As John Quincy Adams remarked, "the Louisiana Purchase was an ‘assumption of implied power greater in itself and more comprehensive in its consequences than all the assumptions of power in the Washington and Adams administrations.’ When it suited his convenience, Jefferson set aside his small-government credo with compunction." p671
Today, most historians view Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase as the greatest achievement of his presidency and one of the greatest expansions of government reach and power in all of U.S. history. Although denounced by many at the time as unconstitutional, it was surely a wise and worthwhile action. Since then, many major government initiatives have been called unconstitutional by someone, including even at times by courts – Lincoln’s conduct of the civil war, Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive reforms, Franklin Roosevelt’s social and economic programs, but most government initiatives have stood the test of changing times.
Jefferson and all the Founding Fathers were bold, farsighted men who looked to the future, not the past, to create an entirely new form of government to meet the needs they recognized at the time. Revolutionaries many ways, still they compromised when major disagreements arose, as political leaders must. They also clearly indicated that the constitution must be seen as a living document, with interpretation able to change with the times. I doubt that most of them, were they alive today, would be looking for answers to the problems of the 21st century exclusively in the issues of the 18th century.
Phyllis Tilson Piotrow
New London
