The Preamble

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

If you just skipped over that, try going back and reading it again. "We the People..." has become a tagline, a catchphrase, a marketing slogan. We learned it in school but didn't understand its value at the time and many of us still don't today. Now when we come across those three famous words scrawled across a poster, flier or even textbook, we look past them instead of at them. So, with my inaugural post on The Eighteen, let's actually look at those words, break them down, and try to understand what our Founders meant when they wrote them.

"We the People of the United States"

You'll notice the Preamble didn't start with "I, George Washington" or "I, Sam Adams," or even "We, the Founders." No, instead they chose "We the People." This was something never before done: the People would design, create and maintain a government where their voices could be represented and heard. While the Founders were great men, they placed no more significance on themselves than the rest of their fellow Americans, but included themselves in the masses with the words "We the People."

"...in order to form a more perfect Union"

This line serves to inform of the Founders' reasoning behind creating the Constitution. The word "form" is important because the Founders weren't adapting a previously-used article, or recycling an old idea, but creating--rather, forming--an entirely new and experimental type of government, an entirely new and experimental type of Union. The word Union signifies that though each state is separately sovereign in it's own right, all states are brought together to form a Union of States: The United States of America.

"...establish Justice,"

As John Adams said: "We are a nation of laws and not of men," the Founders put in place a government that would treat all men equally under the law. Under the Constitution, it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, young or old, black or white (more on that in a future post), but if laws are broken, punishment is distributed equally regardless of connections, class, Creed or stripe.

"...insure domestic Tranquility,"

This means to keep peace within our borders.

"...provide for the common defence,"

And to keep Americans within those borders safe from all enemies, foreign or domestic.

"...promote the general Welfare,"

The word "promote" is very important here and needs to be recognized as different from the word "provide." Promote's definition is "to contribute to the progress or growth of; further," while provide means "to furnish; supply." See the difference? The Second Amendment describes the "right to keep and bear arms," but nowhere does it say the government will provide said arms. Remember the saying "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime?" Of course you do because it's one of the most overused and self-righteous lines ever spoken. But using that quote we can show how promoting a man's ability to fish is different than providing fish to him. The Government can protect the man's right to fish by keeping within their eighteen powers, but this does not include providing him with a worms, a hook or a fishing pole.

"...and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,"

We each feel the need to both protect our families and provide for our children (a generalization, to be sure, but one I believe holds true for the majority of Americans). The Founders called Liberty a "Blessing" because up until this point they had no experience with what most of us take for granted today. It's the difference between working hard to become wealthy and being born into it. As the Founders had come from a tyrannical government, securing this newfound Liberty meant to not only ensure that they themselves would reap its' fruit, but that their children, and ours, might as well.

"...do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

And there you have it, the Preamble to our founding document, the United States Constitution. The Constitution itself is about 7,000 words long and is the framework for our entire government. It's the oldest written constitution still in use today. While it could be argued that we've strayed very far from our Founding Fathers' original intent, 223 years ago, our Constitution began to take shape with the words "We the People..."

After reading that breakdown, hopefully you've come away with a thing or two you didn't know, or maybe you've just unearthed an idea you hadn't considered before. The reason for this first blog post, moreover, the idea behind this blog, is that it's important to realize the above grants no power to the Federal Government. When a person authors a book they usually write an introduction. Once the introduction is read can the rest of the book be skipped and still convey the meaning of the entire text? The answer of course, is no.The Preamble was just that, an introduction, to what the Founders would continue to lay out with the enumerated powers in the Constitution. There are eighteen of them and each was designed to restrict the power of the government so as to not trample the rights of the people from whom its power is derived. The Eighteen.