How Should the Constitution Be Interpreted? | Who Decides Its Meaning?

in 2015 a case came before the United States Supreme Court involving a same-sex male couple that had been living in the state of Ohio couple John Arthur and James obergefell had gotten married in Maryland and soon after that Arthur had died Ohio law defined marriages the union of one man and one woman and the state refused to recognize the marriage in Arthur's death certificate oberga fell sued and the key question that confronted the Supreme Court was whether a state's decision to prohibit same-sex marriage violated the U.S Constitution underlying that question however were more fundamental ones that our nation has struggled to address since its earliest days how should the Constitution be interpreted who decides its meaning and what if anything does the Constitution have to say about issues the framers didn't directly address and in many cases couldn't have possibly anticipated Mr obergefell contended that Ohio's same-sex marriage prohibition violated same-sex couples fundamental right to marry and their equal protection right under the 14th Amendment to be treated the same as opposite sex couples indeed he argued that the very purpose of Ohio's marriage ban was to impose inequality and stigma on same-sex couples Ohio responded that the constitution leaves this policy decision with the states and their voters the people of Ohio want to adopt same-sex marriage the state argued that's their prerogative but the Constitution says nothing about same-sex marriage and certainly does not dictate marriage policy to the states and a landmark 5-4 decision called obergefel V Hodges the court sided with Mr obergefell and implicitly same-sex couples Across the Nation it reason that a person's choice about whether and whom to marry is among the most personal and important decisions of a person's life finding that the denial of the right to that decision would violate both the equal protection and due process Clauses of the 14th Amendment the Court held that the state could not constitutionally deny same-sex couples the right to marry if they wish in one of four dissenting opinions Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged the appeal of the majority's arguments from a policy standpoint but emphasized that the court is not a legislature judges therefore should not decide cases based on what they think is good policy but rather based on the Constitution in his view the Constitution quote had nothing to do with the majority's decision how do you feel about the Court's decision we'll take up the case in more detail in a later lecture but as you might imagine people on both sides feel very strongly about it the intensity of this disagreement is characteristic of disputes over constitutional issues generally from abortion to affirmative action to the scope of federal power to Presidential Power in times of war and more in fact the great policy debates and culture wars of our time are often waged as battles over constitutional meaning why because the Constitution is the blueprint for American government setting the rules by which politics operate the stakes are therefore very high the most Americans throughout our history have never actually read it we've been arguing about the Constitution since it was written as of this taping there are movements underway to change the constitution in fundamental ways their proponents who include both conservatives and liberals argue that a new Constitutional Convention should be held to fix a variety of perceived problems and the ways our government and Society function is that a good idea to answer that question properly and to understand American government politics and law we must understand how the Constitution Works how it has been interpreted and why we have the document in the first place so that's what we're going to explore in this course starting with the Constitution's origins in the 18th century in the year 1786 the United States was in crisis the young country had won its independence from Great Britain with the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783 but its problems were far from over states which had been allied with each other in the war against England now were becoming bitter Rivals they quarreled over a variety of important issues for example the states disagreed about the proper rules for commerce between their borders States enacted laws that aided their own citizens but they disadvantaged other states and citizens from those States when conducting trade or business states with big ports for instance could not resist taxing goods from nearby States nearby states still have to use the ports to sell the goods but they tried to retaliate in other ways minors began to come to a head when negotiations between Maryland and Virginia over fishing and trading rights in the Potomac River grew into an open invitation to all the states to meet at Annapolis Maryland's capital in 1786. as it happened delegates from only five states showed up and they concluded that they couldn't accomplish much without more States represented so they put out a call for a broader meeting the next year in Philadelphia that meeting would become the Constitutional Convention of 1787. by the time the delegates met in Philadelphia it was clear that the Articles of Confederation which had taken effect in 1781 were insufficient to govern the young country in a nutshell the Articles of Confederation provided for only a very weak central government which was unable to manage either disputes between the states or the various external and internal threats the nation faced for example under the Articles the Confederation Congress could not impose taxes and National Defense and prosperity had suffered as a result lacking the money for a decent army or navy America found itself in the mid-1780s at the mercy of foreign pirates marauding on the high seas this made International Trade more difficult closely related to the issue of taxes was the issue of debt in part because of its inability to tax the Confederation Congress had taken out large amounts of debt to finance the Revolutionary War still lacking a source of Revenue America was unable to pay back its loans this seriously threatened the nation if America developed a reputation as a country that did not repay its debts it would find it very difficult to borrow money in the future and borrowed money was vital to a growing economy moreover foreign countries to which America owed money might go so far as to treat non-payment of debts as grounds for War and the American continent was still a tempting Target for European Empires searching for new lands to conquer America faced several other external challenges to the National welfare in the wake of the Revolutionary War American Merchants were eager to restore pre-war patterns the bulk of which included trade with England itself and English colonies in the Caribbean but Britain still angry at the colonies promptly closed its Harbors to American ships both on the British Isles and in the Caribbean meanwhile British ships sailed into American Harbors bringing Goods that had been missed during the war many countries would have imposed large taxes on British ships or simply close their ports in response but the Confederation Congress lacked both the power to tax and to regulate either Interstate or foreign Commerce and the states of course were not coordinated enough to issue a set of restrictions themselves all this made it impossible for American ambassador to England John Adams to negotiate a satisfactory commercial treaty with England England already had what it wanted so why negotiate another Foreign Relations issue to confront America after the war concerned the peace treaty itself after War had broken out many states had confiscated property owned by British subjects or loyalists Treaty of Paris of 1783 required the Confederation Congress to recommend that the state's permit British subjects and Loyalists to sue for the recovery of confiscated property in the meantime however the state governments that had confiscated the property often had sold it to third parties placing the weak Confederation Congress in the awkward position of guaranteeing what it lacked the Constitutional power to deliver the British used the non-compliance with the treaty as a pretext for retaining their fourths in Upstate New York and Michigan which they also were supposed to abandon under the terms of the treaty this further jeopardized the plans for Americans to move westward in part because the British encouraged Native American tribes to resist American encroachments on their land still another Foreign Relations problem involved the territorial Integrity of the young country Spain controlled New Orleans in the 1780s and in 1784 it closed the city and the lower part of the Mississippi River to American navigation this made life extremely hard for settlers and Farmers living west of the Appalachian Mountains previously those settlers had shipped their produce and goods down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf of Mexico and that way kept up trade relations with the rest of the American states on the East Coast this was easier than traversing the rugged mountains with their goods Spanish action isolated those settlers and Spain apparently hoped to bring them under Spanish control thereby helping solidify Spanish control of the region discourage and further migration west of the Appalachians and protecting Spanish Silver Mines in Mexico the young United States lacking military and diplomatic clout could do little in response on top of all of this was internal chaos the most famous example is shae's rebellion in Western Massachusetts Rebellion grew out of an economic depression Massachusetts suffered in the mid-1780s as it was still trying to pay off its sizable wartime debt the state government located 125 miles away in Boston was imposing heavy taxes on farmers in Western Massachusetts to try to pay off its creditors most of whom lived in the Boston area times were already tough for the farmers some of whom had spent time in debtors prison correctly or not they thought that the courts tend to decide with the wealthier creditors when the farmers refused to pay the new taxes the state took them to court and the courts ordered their Farms seized infuriated the farmers organized their own militia of 2000 troops led by Daniel Shea's some of these Rebels surrounded courts around Western Massachusetts so that the courts couldn't open and order more Farms seized State militia that was called out to stop the rebels refused to do so and in some instances even joined them the rebels next goal was the first National Armory in Springfield which held cannons muskets and Gunpowder the rebels marched through one of massachusetts's worst Winters and managed to cut off the roads to the Arsenal on three sides they pledged to kill any prisoners they captured as this internal crisis intensified the Confederation congress met in New York to authorize the recruitment of federal troops to restore order in Massachusetts States however refused to pay for federal troops it's only deep in the problem the central government had proven unable to suppress what was becoming a major domestic uprising realizing they would receive no help from either their own State militia or congress Boston's wealthiest men pooled their money and underwrote a state force of 4 000 men these Fighters joined with State forces and defeated the Shay's Rebels after pursuing them through the snow for a week Shea's rebellion was over but it still had enormous political impact about a decade after the Declaration of Independence Americans were fighting against and killing other Americans it was not just strangers fighting each other but neighbors fighting Neighbors and government had been unable to cool tensions beforehand or suppress the uprising once it arose even in Massachusetts which supposedly had one of the best state constitutions something had gone terribly wrong and Americans all over the country took notice their governments had failed them it was against this backdrop of multiple and interrelated governmental failures that the delegates met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. the states had sent their representatives to revise the Articles of Confederation but many of the delegates believed that the Articles were Beyond repair and that an entirely new Charter of government was necessary they therefore began debating the contents of a new constitution even though such a departure from their initial mandate was a lawless action from the start it became apparent that the delegates could not agree on much two disagreements dominated the convention first involved the question of how States would be represented in Congress many delegates assumed that states would have proportionate representation in the House of Representatives meaning that states with larger populations would get more Representatives than states with smaller ones what about the Senate some delegates such as James Madison believed the Senate too should have proportionate representation others especially from smaller States believe that each state should have the same number of representatives in the Senate as you surely know the Constitution ultimately provided that each state would get two senators but the delegates would debate the issue over and over again second was the question of slavery some Southern delegates insisted that the constitution provide ample protection for slavery and they got their way the Constitution that emerged from the convention prohibited Congress from abolishing the slave trade for 20 years stipulated that runaway slaves be returned to their owners even if they had managed to flee to a state without slavery and perhaps most notoriously it provided that each slave be counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of a state's representation in the House of Representatives as a result states with large slave populations got disproportionately large representation in the house and through the electoral college system and presidential elections as well in other words those slaves did not enjoy the right to vote their presence meant that White Citizens and slave states who did enjoy the right to vote got increased representation in the federal government this Arrangement helped the southern states further entrench slavery in the decades to come it was not until the 13th amendment abolished slavery in 1865 at the end of a brutal and long Civil War that the Constitution's pro-slavery Provisions would be undone it's interesting to note that the framers didn't spend a lot of time debating many of the issues we care about most today for instance they said very little about individual rights they said very little about the power of the federal courts to review the constitutionality of governmental action they also didn't come to much agreement on the power of the U.S president moreover they rarely reach consensus on the issues they did debate as a result the final document was very much a compromise that most delegates agreed was imperfect Madison himself sometimes called the father of the Constitution was disappointed by several features of the Constitution including the convention's decision not to give the federal government a veto power over state governments by its own terms the Constitution could only take effect if nine of the 13 states ratified it during the ratification debates that followed throughout the country it became clear that there was widespread disagreement not just about whether to adopt the new constitution but also about what it meant these debates foreshadowed centuries of disagreement to come while the Constitution left many important issues unresolved it was clearly designed to serve some primary purposes we might disagree about how it serves those purposes but it's worth identifying what those purposes were first and foremost the Constitution establishes a national government and allocates power among the branches of that government Article 1 creates Congress and confers upon it enumerated legislative powers this Congress is bicameral meaning it contains two houses Article 1 sets the qualifications for each House's members and also generally defines the procedures for enacting laws Article 2 creates the presidency and gives it the executive power it defines the office the qualifications of the occupant the method of Elections and the powers of the presidency though it's very vague as to the scope of executive power article 3 creates the U.S Supreme Court and authorizes congress to create lower federal courts it also specifies the categories of cases over which the federal court should have jurisdiction note that the creation of a national government was a big deal in 1787. as we've already seen America's national government under the Articles of Confederation had very limited powers and even lacked a chief executive and a federal judiciary while the crises of the 1780s convinced many Americans that they needed a stronger central government than the Articles had provided for the shift from the very weak decentralized government under the Articles to the stronger national government under the Constitution signaled a major shift in American political life it's therefore no mystery why the Constitution did not best Federal power all in one place although the framers realized that the Articles of Confederation had gone too far in decentralizing power they also remembered English colonial rule well enough to view the centralization of power as a means to tyranny to the framers King George III of England had tyrannized the colonies and he had been able to do so in part because no other branch of government possessed sufficient power to balance the king's vast Authority although Parliament behaved tyrannically too partially as a reaction to their experience under English rule the framers created a constitutional system in which multiple branches must act to accomplish any result for example to enact a law both houses of Congress must pass a bill and the president must sign it unless the legislature is able to override an executive veto by a super majority which is difficult and doesn't happen very often and if Congress enacts a criminal law enforcement requires prosecution by the executive branch and conviction within the Judiciary second thing the Constitution does is sketch the relationship between the federal and state governments ours is a Federalist system meaning that we have two kinds of governments National and state with jurisdiction over the same territory there was already a federalist system in place under the Articles of Confederation of course but Power resided almost entirely within the states framers recognize that there were certain governmental functions that could be performed much better by one central government rather than multiple different states in particular they thought a national government was necessary for defending the country for relations with other countries for a national currency and for the regulation of national Commerce but the framers still left much power with the states themselves where in the Constitution can we see the balance the framers actually struck between National and state power well Article 1 grants Congress certain enumerated powers it says quote all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States thus if the Constitution does not Grant Congress a specific power Congress lacks that power of course subsequent amendments to the Constitution added to congress's power most notably the 13th 14th and 15th amendments which were adopted between 1865 and 1870 after the Civil War vested more power in the national government to enforce new Rights created by those amendments thus these reconstruction amendments as they're known altered the original balance between the state governments and the national government but even taking these changes into consideration the Constitution defines congress's Powers rather than leaving them open-ended also the 10th Amendment stipulates that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution or prohibited to the states are reserved to the states or to the people so if we read these two principles together we get the rule that congressional action is only valid if the Constitution authorizes it and that state action is valid unless it's prohibited in other words under our constitutional system Federal action is presumptively invalid and state action is presumptively valid however it's also worth noting that once federal laws are properly enacted article 6 of The Constitution makes clear that those laws are the supreme law of the land and Trump any state laws to the contrary so the federal government has more limitations on the kinds of laws it's allowed to make than new state governments but the supremacy clause stipulates that when in Conflict valid federal laws Supreme over otherwise valid state law third major goal of the Constitution is to protect individual rights as I mentioned earlier the original Constitution said very little about individual rights most of the important Liberties that many Americans consider core constitutional rights Free Speech free exercise of religion freedom from unreasonable search and seizures and so on they were added to the Constitution as the Bill of Rights The Constitution's first ten amendments which were ratified in 1791. that's not to say that the constitution completely ignored individual rights before the Bill of Rights but it didn't protect much this absence of individually protected rights in the constitution of 1787 may seem surprising but some framers believe that the protection of specific rights was unnecessary because the very structure of government protected rights in other words they understood that the checks and balances they were building into government separation of powers bicameralism federalism those existed to protect individual rights from the excesses of government moreover these Americans were quick to point out that their system of government was decidedly different from that of England had its Magna Carta from 1215 and its Bill of Rights from 1689 and both those protected some individual rights but in England Parliament The Sovereign so the people needed explicit protection from The Sovereign from the country's governing powers but as the founding generation came to see it in the United States sovereignty resided not in the government but in the people themselves the people sent their representatives to government but in so doing they did not cede sovereignty to the government consequently a Bill of Rights was seen by many as irrelevant of course ultimately a Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution in large part because many states that ratified the Constitution did so on the condition that a Bill of Rights be added in fact the Bill of Rights was really offered in part as a political compromise to appease Anti-Federalists who were fighting against ratification in many states and wanted additional assurances that government would not become tyrannical some members of the founding generation also recognized the potential for tyranny of the majority and saw the Bill of Rights as an additional Safeguard against that tyranny bear in mind however that the Bill of Rights of 1791 was much more limited in scope than the provisions that so pervade our constitutional Consciousness today indeed it originally only applied to the federal government meaning that the U.S Constitution's Bill of Rights did not protect against State governmental infringement of these rights many states had their own Bill of Rights in their own state constitutions but most of the rights in the Bill of Rights were much later applied to the states through the 1868 14th Amendment but in many cases that did not occur until well into the 20th century one final note about individual rights almost all constitutional rights protect people from governmental action not private conduct The Only Exception is the 13th Amendment which prohibits slavery including of course slave holding by private individuals otherwise however constitutional rights only involve the relationship between the government and individuals not the relationship between individuals individuals are protected from each other by private laws such as tort law and contract law but government action is required for the Constitution to apply of course the Constitution empowers government to pass certain laws that apply to private conduct but for the most part the Constitution does not constrain private conduct by its own Force so those are the major things the Constitution does as you can see it's not so hard to summarize the Constitution's primary purposes in Broad strokes but that doesn't mean it's easy to figure out what outcomes the Constitution requires in particular cases For Better or Worse the Constitution often doesn't speak for itself sometimes as in the case of obergafel V Hodges that we considered earlier issues arise that are not directly addressed by any constitutional provision in other cases The Constitution's broad open-ended language raises questions as to when they should apply what does due process mean cruel and unusual punishment equal protection privileges and immunities even when the Constitution is written in absolute terms most people agree that at least with regards to individual rights it usually does not function in absolutes circumstances matter the First Amendment for example is written in absolute terms and prohibits Congress from making any law impinging the freedom of speech but Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said that falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic is not protected and most people would agree that the right to free speech though crucial in a free Society must have certain limitations lawyers and judges are therefore left to argue about how best to interpret the Constitution historically they have drawn in a variety of sources including the Constitution's text and structure judicial precedent original understandings past governmental practices practical concerns moral concerns and more as you might expect lawyers and judges frequently disagree with each other about not just how to decide particular constitutional cases but also about interpretive methodologies probably not surprising then that the U.S Supreme Court decides a lot of high-profile constitutional cases like the same-sex marriage Case by a five to four vote the open-ended nature of the Constitution's language can make constitutional law maddeningly uncertain I think you'll find though once you sweep away all the nuances and complexities it usually boils down to a single question who decides who decides the meaning of the Constitution and the content of governmental policy federal or the state government the courts or the legislature or the Executive Branch the people themselves and if so how do we figure out what they think some combination if it's a combination who is the final word when there's a disagreement over the next 11 lectures we will examine numerous constitutional cases and doctrines we'll dig into the weeds of some famous decisions and legal reasoning as we do so I suggest you keep in mind this question of who decides because at the end of the day constitutional law is usually not about which policy is wisest or which values are most American or morally acceptable no constitutional law is about power and specifically where power resides in American government and whether a particular governmental entity has the authority to do what it's trying to do it is similarly about whether and when courts have the proper authority to tell a governmental entity that it may not do what it's trying to do and it is about how judges other public officials and ordinary citizens should think about and frame these questions unpredictable or elusive as the answers May sometimes be they matter enormously because they govern our individual liberty our governmental structure and the character and future of our nation

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Id: fYdGi-ojR3M

Length: 32min 7sec (1927 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 15 2022