While driving to work yesterday morning there was part of an interview on morning edition with Bob Edwards talking to a man who wrote an in depth book about the history of the constitution.(I cannot recall his name). In one part of the interview the author makes the statement that Benjamin Franklin said eventually the constitution will fail.

Question for debate: Do you think the Constitution of the United States will eventually fail?

That can only depend on your definition of failure, and the timeline you're referring to. I think that it is more than reasonable to suggest that at some point in the next four million years the American Constitution may cease to exist.

On a more immediate timeline however, definitions come into play. Some people (and I'm willing to bet some posters like Hugo) would argue that it already has failed. A person like me would say it hasn't. If the Constitution continues to define the State's relationship with its people as it currently does (albeit in an interpretive manner) then it is a sucess, and I don't see that changing at any point in the near future.

Well, in the long run, of course, everything created by human beings will cease to exist. At some time in the future -- hundreds or thousands of years from now -- the United States will be just a dim memory, if even that.

But let's assume you mean during the lifetime of the United States. A strong case can be made, and is frequently made, that the Constitution is already ignored; that a large number of the activities of the Federal government are not authorized by the Constitution and are hence illegal. If you accept this argument, the Constitution is already dead, and there seems little chance that the Federal government will stop all these activities.

On the other hand, there are important parts of the Constitution that are still respected (although there is frequently strong debate over how to respect these parts.) The Bill of Rights seems pretty strong to me, although many would argue over whether certain of these rights are under attack.

Current state of the Constitution? Pretty good, I think. I suspect it will stay in a pretty good condition for the near future. Fortunately, there are people willing to put up a strong fight for various parts of the Constitution.

Our Constitution still guarantees certain rights. Unfortunately now instead of the federal government being limited to the powers in Article 1 Section 8 the federal government is primarily only limited by the amendments. The Bill of Rights, which many of the founding fathers believed was unnecessary has turned out to be vital. Those rights guaranteed in the first eight amendments still protect Americans today from tyranny. I can say that the Constitution has failed in many areas, but I cannot label it a complete failure. Fortunately a temporary tyrannical majority is limited by the first eight amendments of the Constitution and many of the other amendments.

I don't think it will fail, not in my lifetime anyway. It'll change as any living thing changes. Each decade, century brings with it new dilemmas and without the incredible framework of the Constitution we would be as a rudderless ship in a hurricane. The Constitution is the lifeline, it provides the overall map, depending on the changes in life, we help provide the everchanging boundaries within that map.

unless and until we are overwhelmed and conquered by outside forces foreign to our way of life, I really don't think the Constitution of the US will fail.

If failure is ceasing to exist, then eventually, it probably will. But if failure is ceasing to work, or perhaps, running into a situation that is not adequately addressed, then this isn't so easily answered. In a way, you could say that it has failed since it could not have anticipated some of the ways in which our society has changed as a result of technological advancement. But the amendment process, I think, exists to address that very sort of issue.

Where many would say that the Constitution has already failed insofar as it is no longer applied properly in our government, I would say that it is not a failure of the Constitution, but rather a failure on OUR part to hold our government to that Constitution. We have been lax. We have voted for our bellies, we have asked for handouts, we have begged for abuse. And where the government has obliged us or obliged itself to abridge the Constitution, we sat by complacently and did nothing. Where we did do something, there was often an activist judge somewhere along the line who mucked things up with intellectually dishonest rulings.

If there is one failing of our Constitution, it would have to be that no provision is made for activist jurists and judicial despots. But then again, what system does adequately address this problem? If you know of one, perhaps an amendment is in order?

It already has partially failed in its primary purpose of the being the chains that bind down Leviathan, eroded by many decades of judges treating it as a "living document" (meaning one that can be killed) and "legislating from the bench", often disregarding the plain language of the Constitution and the original intent of the Founders in favor of their own political ideologies. But if it has partially failed it has also partially succeeded: We are still more free than not, and the Constitution is largely responsible for that. It is still IMHO not beyond repair provided we citizens get off our duffs and fix this nation where it has gone astray.

I don't think it will fail. I choose not to have pessimistic views. I think it will be strengthened. Throughout history, our Constitution has always been amended for the better, not for the worse. It's most likely our Constitution will become more progressive.

I would have to disagree. It was amended to prohibit alchohol, which I find to have been amazingly stupid. It was amended to allow income taxation, which is not a good method of taxation because it has no natural check or balance. It was amended to allow the direct election of Senators, which utterly destroyed the original purpose of the Senate: to represent the States as entities themselves.


Do you use "progressive" in the traditional Marxist parlance meaning socialist?

Let's define failure as the inability to grant equal rights to all of its citizens. Let's define failure as the inability to keep peace and unity.

If it fails, it will fail because of how we interpret it to give rights and priveledges to only few instead of all. Only to many instead of all. Only to the majority, instead of ALL.


If it fails, that's because we LET it fail.


Equal rights for ALL - that's the simplicity of our constitution. It's so easy to keep it successful....the 'golden rule' litmus test is all we have to apply when we come across seemingly tough or contradictory dilemmas.