You rats! We were planning a symposium on amending the Constitution. In fact, we’re still planning it, but you’ve taken a lot of the fun out of it. Congratulations.
Michael Kinsley
Editor
The New Republic
Our Constitution Issue
I have subscribed to American Heritage for more than thirty years and am still fascinated by the celebration of our history. The special copy celebrating our Constitution’s 200th birthday is particularly appreciated. I am delighted with the emphasis that you have shown since American Heritage was acquired by Forbes.
Hank Brown
Member of Congress
Fourth District, Colo.
Our Constitution Issue
The “Special Constitution Issue” of American Heritage (May/June) is a masterpiece. It is outstanding. It deserves a place in the National Archives of the Library of Congress. As an avid student (for the past fifty years) of American history, 1 delighted in the many articles. Especially “A Few Parchment Pages “Unexpected Philadelphia,” and the interesting, well-done “The British View.”
Iru Golden
Phoenix, Ariz.
Our Constitution Issue
I am delighted to receive the bicentennial edition of American Heritage. I am reading it with great interest and appreciation. The photographs are wonderful. Congratulations.
William H. Webster
Director
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D. C.
A SURPRISE AMENDMENT
With few exceptions, the constitutional amendments suggested by experts in “Taking Another Look at the Constitutional Blueprint” have been discussed in the legal literature and in recent books. But one surprise among your list was the amendment to dismiss the exclusion of the foreign-born from presidential eligibility, suggested by Hiller B. Zobel and John Kenneth Galbraith. The Canadianborn Galbraith gets top honors for combining insight and whimsy as he muses at how his life (and ours) might have been different had such an amendment been adopted in his early years.
A few authors suggested means of taming the Supreme Court, but none suggested an amendment restricting the term of office for the Justices themselves. In a little-known article published in the George Washington Law Review in 1938, Charles Collier suggested such a move in the wake of FDR’s failed court-packing attempt. He contemplated a system of rotation whereby one seat on the Supreme Court would be replaced each year with a new appointment. Under one version of this scheme, each of the nine Justices would serve a nine-year term. In order to initiate the system of rotation, current appointees would be assigned a fixed term of ten to eighteen years by lot, with no two Justices assigned the same number of years’ service. After serving on the High Court, Justices would be allowed the opportunity to serve as circuit court judges without diminution of compensation. In the recent past Justice Potter Stewart served as a role model for such a plan, resigning from the Supreme Court at age sixty-six, then sitting on numerous courts of appeals. As Justice Stewart said upon his resignation from the High Court, “Better to go too soon than to stay too long.”
The proposed system of rotation would serve to provide each administration an opportunity to appoint new Justices and ensure that the Court is continually infused with new perspectives, whilst maintaining enough stability among the Court’s membership to take advantage of Justices’ individual and collective expertise.
William E. Cooper
Professor of Psychology
University of Iowa
THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY
I was appalled by your article “Taking Another Look at the Constitutional Blueprint.” Only five comments made any sense—those of Dan T. Carter, John Lukacs, Patricia K. Bonomi, Don E. Fehrenbacher, and Herman BeIz. None would add anything to the Constitution. The rest of the comments are extremely parochial.
I was particularly startled by Joyce Appleby of UCLA. She would like to see constitutional amendments enacted by a simple popular majority. I guess it’s to be expected that someone from California would propose that the Constitution—a venerable document precisely because it is unencumbered by specificity—become as trendy and superficial as Hollywood. Ms. Appleby is distressed to realize that America is not actually a democracy. It is a republic, something I thought clearly understood, particularly by those who claim to be historians. There are good reasons for establishing a democratically elected, republican form of government. Permitting 10 percent of the population to stop an amendment in its tracks—which Ms. Appleby finds shocking—prevents what is known as “tyranny of the majority.” What if a white-supremacist notion swept the United States? Couldn’t blacks again be banned from citizenship by the Constitution?
More to the point, however, the Constitution has survived so adroitly precisely because of the checks and balances that Ms. Appleby seems to ignore. It is the contention engendered by the Constitution’s checks and balances that helps ensure that “the common good is seen as incorporating the nurturing of all people whether they be privileged or not,” to quote Ms. Appleby’s idealistic and rather naive motive for democracy. In fact, I believe Ms. Appleby would regret a simple majority rule once she discovered the majority was not as idealistic as she is.
Which brings me to another point made by a majority of the commentators in your piece. They seem to wish to rely on laws to make people responsible. There is a fundamental flaw in their position: A nation of laws is possible only if the citizens of that nation believe in those laws and thereby act responsibly. It is otherwise not much better than anarchy.
It seems to me that we have completely abrogated our responsibility as members of a society. It is not a constitutional issue to have prayer in schools or to balance the budget or to establish that women have the same rights as men or to ensure that we can expose ourselves to obscenity as we choose. Rather, these are issues of responsibility. It is the responsibility of an individual school board—and the people who elect it—to determine whether their school district should permit praying in school or not. It is the responsibility of the President and the Congress to balance the budget. It is the responsibility of individual women to ensure they’re treated equally. It is my responsibility to decide whether I wish to avail myself of obscenity.
I think we need to get something straight. Our rights are not God-given. They are not granted by a beneficent government. They were earned by the blood, the sweat, the pain, the willing deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Our rights are not so much inalienable rights ensured by the government as they are privileges that require responsibility. Because I am an American, I am privileged to bear arms. But if I bear arms irresponsibly, do 1 still deserve that privilege? I am privileged to speak freely. But if I speak irresponsibly—by lying, for example—do I still deserve that privilege? I have the privilege of a quick and speedy trial by jury. But if 1 litigate irresponsibly, do I still deserve that privilege? I have the privilege of participating in my government by voting. But if I vote irresponsibly—in effect by not voting—do I still deserve that privilege?
This Constitution of ours outlines a participatory, republican form of democracy. It is a splendid compromise between the Jeffersonian democrats and the Hamiltonian republicans, factions which obviously still exist. I do not think for one minute that those men who battled in our behalf would be pleased with us. Without responsibility on our part, we’re not far removed from the Hobbesian “self-interested man” that the authors of the Constitution fervently wished to overcome. By abdicating our responsibility to our society, I’m afraid we’re letting them down.
Craig Tyler
Philadelphia, Pa.
THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY
Before your May/June issue, I was afraid of the government. Now I’m afraid of Professor Appleby.
John Francis
Costa Mesa, Calif.
GOOD READING
I found your quiet tour along the rugged road of American history and origin of the Constitution most enjoyable reading. Of particular interest to me were the suggested alterations of the Constitution presented by former Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter.
Sir Oliver Wright provided a unique and enlightening assessment of the political circumstances in Britain that led to the American Revolution, Independence, and the Constitution. Additionally, the portrait of Philadelphia and wealth of information on upcoming bicentennial events are very useful to readers.
Thank you very much for your remarkable contribution to the celebration of the bicentennial of the United States Constitution. I am thrilled by the overwhelming enthusiasm over the commemoration and I am extremely proud to have the privilege of serving on the National Commission.
Lindy (Mrs. Hale) Boggs
House of Representatives
Congress of the United States
Washington, D.C.
GOOD READING
Your issue honoring the Constitution is both stimulating and entertaining. I treasure it not only for the history it portrays but for the excellent manner in which it is presented. It truly is a masterpiece.
Henry Crown
Chairman of the Board of Henry Crown and Co.
Chicago, III.
PHILADELPHIA RENEWAL
In “Unexpected Philadelphia,” John Lukacs states, “The Independence National Historical Park project rose together with the reconstruction of Old Philadelphia that was the work of civicminded Philadelphians themselves … in what is known as Society Hill.… the rebuilding and repeopling of a long-decayed and abandoned portion of Philadelphia that now is not only teeming with tourists but pulsating with everyday life.”
Not so. The Society Hill area, which by the end of World War 11 had declined into rows of neglected warehouses and cheap rooming houses and retail stores, was redeemed by the federally assisted urban renewal program created under the Housing Act of 1949. Philadelphia was one of the first American cities to request such aid, and tens of millions of dollars were poured into Society Hill and a number of other projects, to subsidize the removal of blight and deterioration and make possible rebuilding and renovation.
These remarks are not designed to denigrate the efforts of Philadelphians, which were considerable, but to set the record straight on the coniributions of the national urban renewal program to local efforts for the reclamation and revitalization of cities all across the U.S A
I know. I was Director of Public Information for the Urban Renewal Administration during its most active and productive years, 1961 to 1968.
Sydney H. Kasper
Silver Spring, Md.
THE NIXON DIVIDE
The American heritage is a hell of a lot more than the Eastern liberal establishment and the New York, Boston, Washington yuppy axis. In short, American Heritage magazine, with its time-worn negative clichés about Nixon, and any other conservative, isn’t for me.
W. C. Clark
Skaneateles, N. Y.
THE NIXON DIVIDE
Your poll of how prominent persons would change the Constitution reflected a brilliant idea. But it was flawed in execution. You included Richard M. Nixon and gave him the lead position. How could you have done this?
This ongoing romance the country seems to be having with the most despicable liar and morally degenerate American of the century can be comprehended only when such as yourselves continue to pander to his apparent desires. The man who, but for the stupidity of his successor, would have been in jail (and should be as far as this writer is concerned) is a fine example to hold before the world as an ex-President.
I wish I could understand the press’s lack of morality in continually bringing Nixon before us. We’ve had more than enough of the man. We couldn’t believe him when he left the White House; how can we believe him now? Has he become moral since 1974? Hardly! He didn’t know right from wrong then and he probably doesn’t now.
John Russell
Fair Haven, N.J.
THE SECOND AMENDMENT: A DIFFERENT VIEW
While Mr. Herbert Mitgang is certainly entitled to his opinion, 1 am disappointed that American Heritage would print such a patently biased, even childish, comment on the Second Amendment. I happen to agree with that large body of constitutional scholars who disagrees with his interpretation.
It seems obvious that the word people which appears in the First, Second, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments and in the Fourteenth as citizens refers to individual, not collective, rights. Certainly no one would argue that only groups could peaceably assemble, “be secure in their persons,” retain unenumerated rights, or have powers reserved to them. Why should protection of person, property, and state be different?
Additionally, in Article XIV it is obvious that any unjust laws shall not be made or enforced against individuals as well as collective bodies.
While I concur in thinking that the Bill of Rights is constantly perverted to promote just one side of an argument, it seems obvious that any perversion of the Second Amendment has been encouraged by those who would deny us individual freedoms.
J. Warren Cassidy
Executive Vice President
National Rifle Association of America
THE SECOND AMENDMENT: A DIFFERENT VIEW
Your Constitution feature was fine. One time I can agree 100 percent with Jimmy Carter, even. I feel the Constitution is twenty-five to fifty years ahead of the average American politician and maybe 150 ahead of Herbert Mitgang. I doubt he knows that our Bill of Rights contains a lot of things that would be treason or heresy in large areas of the world. I also wonder if taking out the Second Amendment, as he wishes, would leave the less controversial parts open to assault by people who are after Today’s Relevancy and unaware of Tomorrow’s Needs.
John P. Conlon
Newark, Ohio
THE OLDEST CONSTITUTION?
The oldest written constitution still going is not the Constitution of the United States but the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of 1780. That constitution not only is the oldest still in use but also served as the pattern for the federal Constitution and other democratic constitutions that have followed.
In the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 are established the following, which also appear in the federal Constitution:
1. The philosophy of democratic government here.
2. The frame of government with the three separate branches, and the twohouse legislature.
3. The definition of rights.
Were it not for John Adams through the Constitution of Massachusetts and his treatise of 1787, the United States might possibly have had a parliamentary form of government patterned after the English one to which the drafters of the Constitution had been accustomed.
H. Hobart Holly
Braintree, Mass.
THE OLDEST CONSTITUTION?
In your special issue on the Constitution, something is missing: the intellectual debt of our Founders to societies maintained by the Native Americans the colonists “discovered.”
While European influence on our revolutionary character and institutions was great, there were other threads in our intellectual tapestry. The colonists lived on small “islands” of settlement in a sea of native peoples, many of whom governed themselves through confederacies. The best known to our Founders was the Iroquois League, largely because its constitution, or Great Law of Peace, was preserved on wampum (a form of written communication) and is today available in English. The other major Indian nations that bordered the colonies also used a confederate model with internal mechanisms that struck the colonials as distinctly democratic.
The writings of Benjamin Franklin are the best illustration of native influence. Thomas Jefferson remarked on it often, as well. Other figures in our history as far back in time as Roger Williams made of the Indian an exemplar of the liberty they so cherished. The literature contains too much of this sentiment for us to be able to dismiss it as latter-day oversentimentalizing of the image of the Indian.
Franklin gained his first diplomatic experience in the early 1750s as a colonial representative to the Iroquois, and used the example of the Iroquois League to recommend the first attempt at colonial union in Albany (1754). Franklin’s draft of the Articles of Confederation also borrowed liberally from the Iroquois as well as from ancient European models. He used what he studied and what he saw in his own work along the frontier.
Like Franklin, Thomas Paine knew that European civilization could not be made over in the native image, but the image of what Indian societies represented to them was a constant reminder of what they rebelled against. The “Mohawks” who dumped tea in Boston Harbor picked their disguise with great care, as part of their symbolic act.
Even in the midst of near anarchy produced by the Articles of Confederation, Jefferson was warning of the perils of too much government, using the Indian image as an example. In a letter to Edward Carrington (1787), he wrote: “I am convinced that those societies as the Indians … enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments.”
Bruce E. Johansen
University of Nebraska
Omaha, Nebr.
Defining a Hospital
The first sentence of William A. Nolen’s article “Bellevue: No One Was Ever Turned Away” in your February/March issue says that Bellevue is the oldest hospital in the United States. This is not, strictly speaking, true.
The very first semblance of American hospitals appeared in the early eighteenth century—hastily built structures intended to confine contagious disease. They were built primarily in seaport towns and were operational only during the course of a full-scale epidemic.
Later in the eighteenth century, another institution attempted to provide the continuous service that the early centers lacked. This was the almshouse, established solely for the care of a city’s poor. Almshouses performed a multitude of functions—they housed the destitute sick, they served as orphanages, they confined criminals, and they harbored the insane. Bellevue Hospital was established as such an almshouse in 1736 to house New York’s “poor, aged, insane, and disreputable.”
The next type of medical care institution to emerge was the voluntary hospital. As an urbanized middle class began to grow in the colonies, it demanded better care than the largely inefficient almshouses provided. Patients were willing to pay for that care.
Voluntary hospitals generally were begun by philanthropic gifts, but their ongoing operations were financed both by voluntary contributions and by patients’ fees. Between 1751 and 1840 at least eleven of these hospitals were founded. The first was Pennsylvania Hospital.
What this all boils down to is that Pennsylvania Hospital was the first hospital founded as a hospital. It wasn’t established as a temporary means of dealing with a crisis. Nor was it an almshouse that later became a hospital.
H. Robert Cathcart
President, Pennsylvania Hospital
Philadelphia, Pa.
