Monday, October 29, 2012

What I'd Tell Our Founding Fathers


Dear Founding Fathers of the Constitution,

Your Constitution has been changed quite a bit since you had last seen it. It’s heavily guarded, and is an immense part of our Country as it stands today due to its significance. The changes to our and your Constitution are at quite a large extent, and rules have changed a bit since you last saw them, which I know you assumed there would be. Sculpting to our needs, your constitution was and still is a living document that has kept our nation united and strong.

Years and years after you all died, a war broke between the South and North region, the Civil war. It occurred over the disagreements involving slavery. Even though about half of the citizens of our country disagreed with slavery, it was still legal until the North states won, ending slavery. Then Civil War Amendments were added to the Constitution. The thirteenth amendment ended slavery, the fourteenth amendment protected those slaves whom were freed, and the fifteenth amendment was created to protect blacks’ voting rights. Though our country went through a lot at that stage, the Constitution kept us together and healed us in this way.

Over the years, more and more amendments were created through basic passage of legislation by congress, an action taken by a President, key decisions by a Supreme Court, or the activities of a political party. There were twelve more amendments after the fifteenth. The biggest milestones I feel were the nineteenth, twenty-second, and the twenty-sixth amendments. Being a huge turning point of our country was the nineteenth stating there is to be “no denial of suffrage based on sex,” meaning women could now vote, not just men like in your day. Another amendment was the twenty-second explains presidents can only serve two terms in congress. One of the last amendments is the twenty-sixth, allowing voting at the age of eighteen. In all there are twenty-seven amendments, which I can guarantee you will increase as years pass.

The Constitution has been a phenomenal part of strengthening our country while maintaining flexibility to adapt to our needs as a whole. Your document has now become one of the most important, heavily guarded pieces of history of our nation. I wonder if you could’ve even imagined just how far it would come and how large of a binding factor it is for our country.

Sincerely,

Hannah 

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