WI: 11th Amendment To The Bill Of Rights

I was reading somewhere that Thomas Jefferson apparently once said that a constitution should be rewritten once every twenty years, so that the current generation is not enslaved to the previous.

So, say that at the Constitutional Convention, they actually put this in as the 11th Amendment to the Bill of Rights; That is, that every twenty years, following the presidential election, the constitution will be rewritten from the ground up.
 
:eek:

Best case scenario: Lots of confusion and problems sorting out how to assemble a new Constitution convention and what the new constitution would look like.

Worst case scenario: We get to find out why frequent revolution is a bad thing.
 
Hmmm, I think it will very quickly become merely a ratification of the previous constitution with the odd amendment enshrined as an article.
 
:eek:
Worst case scenario: We get to find out why frequent revolution is a bad thing.

Well frequent revolution is not necessarily a bad thing. Violent Revolutions are a bad thing, simply changing a system and modifying it over the years to keep up the times is a good thing. I mean my god look at the United States today, it is the pure example of stagnation. We needed change in the 70s and only now are people starting to final realize that things are worse and if stayed the same things will only get worse. But unfortunately what to change and not, is the question.
 
If it became a formal mechanism of a constitutional convention every twenty years, which usually involved adopting the previous constitution, all it would mean would be an opportunity every twenty years to easily adopt new amendments.

Would be very interesting how this would affect Southern issues on things like the three fifths rule.
 

I'd imagine, actually, that all those appealing-to-Southerners things like slave trade would initially be in, for the reasons of "let those guys from 1809* abolish it if they want". :)

I wonder, though, whether some kind of a Lincoln figure will try to get rid of that little pesky article... ;):D:eek:



*) 20 years after the original Constitution was adopted.
 
Well frequent revolution is not necessarily a bad thing. Violent Revolutions are a bad thing, simply changing a system and modifying it over the years to keep up the times is a good thing. I mean my god look at the United States today, it is the pure example of stagnation. We needed change in the 70s and only now are people starting to final realize that things are worse and if stayed the same things will only get worse. But unfortunately what to change and not, is the question.

We can change the system without revolution, thanks to the Constitution being amendable.

TyranicusMaximus: Yes. Revolution of the sort where the "tree of liberty' is "watered by the blood of patriots and tyrants".
 
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