Lefty Blogger: Americans of Today Shouldn’t Be ‘Stunted With the Same Moral Sensibilities’ as the Founding Fathers

Quite a few right-wingers call themselves constitutional conservatives, but self-described constitutional liberals are pretty rare. Washington Monthly blogger Martin Longman essentially positioned himself as one in a Friday post, arguing that there’s no need for modern Americans to interpret the Constitution the way the Founders did, but contending that the Founders would be OK with that because they knew “we could amend the Constitution, [or] pass new laws, [or] judges would make rulings consistent with changing standards about privacy and human sexuality and crime and punishment.”

“The modern world,” wrote Longman, “would blow all of [the Founders’] minds and they would probably struggle to make sense of it.” He claimed, for example, that George Washington wouldn’t “believe that the NRA was being reasonable at all” in its opposition to proposed gun restrictions.

From Longman’s post (emphasis added):

The people who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution didn’t intend by so doing to abolish slavery or abolish the death penalty or give women the right to vote or to an abortion or to legalize same-sex marriage. But they did ban cruel and unusual punishment, and they did ban unreasonable searches. With the Fourteenth Amendment the people demanded equal protection under the law. So, it seems to me that the Founders understood that what was considered unusual and unreasonable in their time might not be considered so in future generations, and the idea that people should be treated equally under the law was firmly established under the conditions of amendment laid down by the Founders…

The modern world would blow all of their minds and they would probably struggle to make sense of it. Computers, airplanes, satellites, space travel, modern hospitals, cars, nuclear weapons.

My point is that you can’t decide what is unusual and unreasonable based on what the Founding Fathers thought to be so. The death penalty used to be used in every country, now only a few rogue nations and the USA still subscribe to this barbarism. It’s certainly unusual if you think globally…

There’s merit in trying to ascertain what the Founders intended the Constitution to mean, but that doesn’t mean that our understanding has to be the same. George Washington wanted a well-regulated militia but he couldn’t imagine a teenager gunning down two classrooms of first graders in less than five minutes. I think if Washington took a guided tour of the Pentagon and the Situation Room, his concern about having a well-regulated militia would go out the door. If he saw what happens on a regular basis in our schools, malls, and workplaces with gun violence, I think he’d be appalled. In his day mass shootings weren’t just unusual, they were impossible. I don’t think he’d believe that the NRA was being reasonable at all.

So, really, it doesn’t matter that the Founders didn’t endorse the abolition of slavery and the death sentence or gay marriage or abortion rights or female suffrage.They knew that standards would change and they provided us with a way to deal with that change. In some cases, we could amend the Constitution, in others we could pass new laws, and in still others judges would make rulings consistent with changing standards about privacy and human sexuality and crime and punishment.

We aren’t supposed to live in amber, stunted with the same moral sensibilities as 18th-Century men.