A Tough Leap (The Birth of the U.S. Constitution and Our Reflections)

Author: Yi Zhongtian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: The United States is indeed a unique country. It did not establish a constitution after gaining national power and then form a state system, but rather drafted and approved a constitution first, upon which it established the state system. At the very least, the constitutional process and the process of building the state occurred simultaneously—the process of drafting the constitution was also the process of building the state. The Constitution drafted at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention is the world's first written constitution, containing a brilliant design. It was precisely this design that created a system that was both democratic and republican, fully embodying the spirit of constitutionalism and the rule of law. This allowed this young nation to rise from the wilderness and quickly become a superpower, one that you may not like but cannot afford to overlook. Although the debates at the time were intense and the process extremely difficult to believe, such a brilliant design created by a group of backwoods settlers on a wild continent over two hundred years ago is truly astonishing. Even with the simple American bottom line, which consists of just a few words like "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."