Why? Knowing intent and audience helps you become a better US Citizen
To properly interpret or exegete a text you need to know some contextual information. Context is a very important part of understanding any writing. Knowing the writer’s intent (the why), the writer’s audience (the who), and to a lesser extent the time and process of the writing (the when and how). The two most important are intent and audience. From these two critically important answers we can set up a framework for proper exegesis.
Without context you make any passage or quote say whatever you want it to say. Or worse interpret a passage or quote to mean what you want it to say. There is a patently false claim that John F. Kennedy called himself a doughnut in a speech in Berlin. Without context this statement is true. However if you begin to add context like that Kennedy was there as a show of support to the people of East Germany and that the audience were all residents of Berlin. Very important information comes to light. Berliner, the word he used, is the name of a pastry. However it is not in common usage and even less so with the citizens of Berlin. Secondly we are assuming that the German citizens of the city of Berlin were to stupid to understand that he meant that we are all citizens of Berlin. Again false. Yet this phony story comes up over and over again. Worse it is used to portray Kennedy’s foreign policy as weak and ineffective.
So Let’s Start Answering These important Questions.
Why?
Why was the American Bill of Rights written? Answering this one simple question destroy’s nearly all maneuvering by politicians and political parties. Now we can disagree with the intent itself. But that does not minimize or eliminate the fact that the intent exists, that free people chose to codify the bill.
So then why? The Bill of Rights is simply a political compromise. Anti-Federalists opposed ratification of the broad and sweeping terms listed in the US Constitution. Anti-Federalists believed that the constitution would embolden the federal government to incrementally seize power.
James Madison the author of the Bill of Rights drew heavily from the Virginia Constitution as well as his peers. His intent was to specifically and irrevocably reserve the rights listed to the people or the states. His primary purpose was to limit the political strength of the federal government. Initially he submitted 39 amendments of which only ten were initially approved.
One of the great epistles of the time was written to James Madison by none other than Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson a devout anti federalist wrote
“Half a loaf is better than no bread. If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.”
Knowing that ratification of the Constitution had significant support by, well lets face it, politicians the anti-federalists wanted what we call the Bill of Rights inserted into the constitution rather than as a supplemental document. We know what happened there!
Who?
Who was Madison addressing in the Bill of Rights? Obviously he was writing it to the ratifiers of the Constitution but his true audience was free men and women of the new nation. That means it was written to you and I. Madison and other anti-federalists were concerned (and rightly so) that a constitution and president were just different names for King’s justice and a sitting king.
Brutus, the pen name for an anti-federalist of the time wrote this fantastic commentary. Rather than paraphrase or even attempt my own commentary I would rather have you read what they believed and wrote.
“Ought not a government, vested with such extensive and indefinite authority, to have been restricted by a declaration of rights? It certainly ought. So clear a point is this, that I cannot help suspecting that persons who attempt to persuade people that such reservations were less necessary under this Constitution than under those of the States, are wilfully endeavoring to deceive, and to lead you into an absolute state of vassalage.”
This Isn’t About Republicans or Democrats its About Liberty
Unfortunately we have reached a place in popular culture where things as arcane as the Constitution or Bill of Rights have fallen out of fashion. We now live in a feel good society where decisions are based on expediency and lack of consequence.
Unfortunately in a truly free society there are numerous consequences that many people do not want to be responsible for. It is easier to live off the loaf of bread the government gave you than to grow wheat and make your own.
Both Republicans and Democrats in the federal government have stripped freedoms from the people and the states. Both Republicans and Democrats in state governments have allowed this to happen. But why? It’s all about coercion and this unending spiral towards complete control. This is just the normal course of human history. We will not recover a time where we were truly free until we again become so enslaved that hopelessness drives us to revolt.
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