The Constitution\u27s Bicentennial: Commemorating the Wrong Document?

1987 marks the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution. A Commission has been established to coordinate the celebration. The official meetings, essay contests, and festivities have begun. The planned commemoration will span three years, and I am told 1987 is dedicated to the memory of the Founders and the document they drafted in Philadelphia. \u27 We are to recall the achievements of our Founders and the knowledge and experience that inspired them, the nature of the government they established,its origins, its character, and its ends, and the rights and privileges of citizenship, as well as its attendant responsibilities. Like many anniversary celebrations, the plan for 1987 takes particular events and holds them up as the source of all the very best that has followed. Patriotic feelings will surely swell, prompting proud proclamations of the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now yellowed with age. This is unfortunate-not the patriotism it- self, but the tendency for the celebration to oversimplify, and over-look the many other events that have been instrumental to our achievements as a nation. The focus of this celebration invites a complacent belief that the vision of those who debated and compromised in Philadelphia yielded the more perfect Union it is said we now enjoy. I cannot accept this invitation, for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever fixed at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite The Constitution, they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago

06-27-1983 Opinion of the Court

JUSTICE MARSHALL, delivered the opinion of the Court

06-12-1986 Correspondence from Marshall to Powell

Dear Lewis: In due course, I shall circulate a dissent in this one

06-26-1986 Justice Marshall, Dissenting

On all too many occasions in recent years, I have felt compelled to express my dissatisfaction with this Court\u27s readiness to dispose summarily of petitions for certiorari on the merits without affording the parties prior notice or an opportunity to file briefs. See, e.g., City of Los Angeles v. Heller, 475 U. S. --, -- (1986) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting); Cuyahoga Valley R. Co. v. Transportation Union, 474 U. S. --, - - (1985) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting); Maggio v. Fulford, 462 U. S. 111, 120-121 (1983) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting). [B]y deciding cases summarily, without benefit of oral argument and full briefing, and often with only limited access to, and review of, the record, this Court runs a great risk of rendering erroneous or ill-advised decisions that may confuse the lower courts: there is no reason to believe that this Court is immune from making mistakes, particularly under these kinds of circumstances. Harris v. Rivera, 454 U. S. 339, 349 (1981) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting)

12-09-1971 Correspondence from Marshall to White

Dear Byron: Please join me in your per curiam

01-20-1971 Justice Marshall, Concurring

MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN join, concurring

01-09-1973 Correspondence from Marshall to White

Dear Byron: Please join me in your per curiam of 1-5-73

07-05-1983 Correspondence from Marshall to Burger

Dear Chief: I have you memorandum concerning the latest suggested addition to the Per Curiam opinion

10-27-1969 Memorandum to the Conference

Here are my suggestions for changes in the proposed Order by the Chief Justice. As you will note, these changes are suggested to replace the Order itself as contrasted to the preliminary paragraphs

10-29-1985 Correspondence from Marshall to O\u27Connor

Dear Sandra: Please add the following to your Per Curiam: JUSTICE MARSHALL dissents from this summary disposition, which has been ordered without affording the parties prior notice or an opportunity to file briefs on the merits. See Maggio v. Fulford, 462 U.S. 111, 120- 121 (1983) (MARSHALL, J ., dissenting); Wyrick v. Fields, 459 u.s. 42, 51- 52 (1982) (MARSHALL, dissenting)