Summary On Reading the Constitution
Uploaded by sammy69 on Oct 26, 2011
This essay discusses the book by Laurence Tribe, and his suggestions for reading and interpreting the Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution of the United States is a document that has proven to be difficult to interpret; or rather, there are so many interpretations possible that it is not unusual for people holding completely different opinions to use the Constitution to justify their opposing views. It is precisely because court decisions, particularly those of the U.S. Supreme Court, are based upon Constitutional law that it is desirable, even necessary, to understand how to read the Constitution. That is the purpose of this book.
The authors are careful to warn readers that they, like other Constitutional scholars, have not been granted some sort of magical “key” that will give them the one and only true interpretation of this document. They remind readers that there is no such thing as a “blueprint” of the Constitution; what they offer is a “framework” to help put it in perspective.
They begin by discussing how not to read the Constitution. The author believes that people who try to interpret the Constitution are likely to fall into one of two main fallacies. Either they use the “dis-integration” method, or they turn to the “hyper-integration” method. Neither one is a sound tool for Constitutional study.
“Dis-integration” is the practice of “…approaching the Constitution in ways that ignore the salient fact that its parts are linked into a whole—that it is a Constitution, and not merely an unconnected bunch of separate clauses and provisions with separate histories, that must be interpreted.” (Tribe, p. 20). As an example of the problems with this method, Tribe discusses Chief Justice Berger’s interpretation of the Fifth Amendment as justification for the use of capital punishment. The Fifth Amendment says that no one can be deprived of “life, liberty or property, without due process of law.” This would suggest to some that it is perfectly legal to deprive someone of life, provided that it is done with due process of law.
This is a narrow interpretation of one amendment, and it stands only so long as we continue to view that single amendment without reference to any of the others. But it’s impossible to do so, for the Eighth Amendment comes into play as well, and it specifically prohibits “cruel and unusual...