What the writers intended

NO MODERN text has been more intensely and intelligently analysed than the fewer than 8,000 words of the constitution of the United States. Akhil Reed Amar, a Yale law and political science professor, has written an original, thorough and opinionated guide to the goals and meaning intended by those who drafted and ratified the original 1787 document and its 27 amendments.

He opens with the mighty words of the preamble: “We, the People...do ordain and establish this Constitution.” This statement and action, Mr Amar asserts, “was the most dramatic deed the world had ever seen.” The malignancy within the original constitution was the result of the need to have it ratified by the southern colonies. Not only was slavery recognised but slaveholders were rewarded with unjustifiable political power. If electoral votes had not been apportioned on a basis that increased the voting power of whites in proportion to the number of slaves in their state, John Adams not Thomas Jefferson, the draftsman of the Declaration of Independence and a slaveowner, would have won the first contested election for president.