The Constitution - My father's New York Times editorial from 1987
For more than 20 years, my father was an editorial writer for the New York Times. He covered the U.S. Supreme Court and the New York courts, primarily.
This Independence Day, he sent around this copy of his editorial from 26 years ago, when the Times, at my father's behest, reprinted the text of the Constitution, along with its customary printing of the Declaration of Independence.
Here, slightly edited, is his introductory email to today's celebrants, followed by the editorial itself. The full text of the U.S. Constitution may be found at constitutionus.com.
Dear fellow celebrants:
One score and six years ago The Times, as is customary and as it does today, printed the Declaration of Independence on a full page. But that year was special for me. i persuaded the paper to publish also the full text of the Constitution in recognition of the 1987 Bicentennial. They did so after i explained that there was no usable "original" document to reproduce, because of the Amendments. The result in-house was so agreeable that my editor put me in for a Publisher's Award, and i got a bonus check for $500; of course it's not the money so much. The printers rewarded me with a lead setting of the Constitution.
The editorial board members rarely relished the holiday editorial gig, which was passed around by some lottery. But I found a lot to say on several Fourths, what with the Constitution and all. So here, for your amusement or on-passing, is that 26-years-ago editorial. jack
The New York Times
July 4, 1987, Saturday, Late City Final Edition
Section 1; Page 26, Column 1; Editorial Desk
The Constitution as News
According to the Constitution's Bicentennial Commission in Washington, the nation's charter is not only being debated in this, its 200th birthday year. It's also being consumed. Eight million pocket-sized copies are already in circulation, two million from the commission alone. The Times publishes it today in our news columns in addition to our traditional Fourth of July 4 facsimile of the Declaration of Independence.
We do so moved by a simple idea: that the best way to honor the Constitution is to rea
d it.
Read it as news, especially if you haven't sat down with it before or lately. For a brief while, ponder its structure and words without help from the experts and explicators of the bench, the Government or the press. The Constitution may even display its organization best when spread out in a newspaper, as it was when first published in the Pennsylvania Packet on Sept. 19, 1787.
Articles I, II and III set forth the powers and duties of the three branches. Readers might ask themselves why the article describing the legislature's powers and duties comes first, before the executive and judicial branches.
It can be rewarding to reflect on some other simple questions, like which sections seem novel, which more important than others. Where does it say ''separation of powers'' and where does it say ''checks and balances''? Answer: Nowhere in the literal words; but those grand concepts arise from the Constitution's very structure.
Which rules are fixed, like the 25-year age minimum for representatives and 30 for senators, and which flexible? Can courts ignore such rules in the name of a ''living Constitution''? Can ''due process of law'' or ''equal protection of the laws'' be held to the same numerical precision or the original intent of the Constitution's draftsmen? One need not be a scholar or partisan to form opinions here. The lay reader will find anomalies. Amendment 14, for instance, guarantees due process and equal protection to all persons. But when it comes to suffrage, it refers specifically only to adult males. Odd, isn't it, that the amendment that now strikes down sex discrimination also enshrines a bit of it?
One can find news scattered through the Constitution. Attorney General Edwin Meese may regard it as news that Article II, Section 2, supports the constitutionality of the independent counsel law. He opposes renewing that law, which offers a credible way for high Administration officials to win exoneration.
He says that only the President can appoint prosecutors. The Constitution says: ''Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.''
In the news recently is the emoluments clause in Article I, Section 6, which can frustrate the aspirations of members of Congress to appointment to the Supreme Court.
No senator or representative can be appointed ''during the time for which he was elected'' to an office ''the Emoluments of which shall have been encreased during such time.'' Is Senator Orrin Hatch a strict constructionist?
One more example and then you're on your own. Can state judges ignore the Federal Constitution? Article VI is strikingly explicit: ''The Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.''
Yes, the Constitution's words have special meanings wrought by courts over two centuries. But today's a good time to forget technicality and terms of art. Any citizen can read the document and ponder its meanings.
The Constitution is old news and new news; most of all, it's good news.
John P MacKenzie
