Guest Blogger: Laurence Kuisle

According to Rousseau all states will die. However, a states life can be prolonged if it has a strong constitution. America may be a young country, but I believe it will survive because of the meticulous effort and thought that went into the constitution. The constitution, as we have learned so far, is comprised of 7 articles. I am going to keep my description brief of the articles themselves due to space constraints. The First 3 articles address the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, respectively. In each of these articles he addresses the individual privileges and powers each has. These articles were made around one of the key principles of the separation of power. Of these three branches Rousseau directly addressed what he felt the purposes of the executive and legislative bodies are, stating that the executive power is the brain and the legislative power is the heart. I believe that Rousseau was spot on with this analogy because he nails the fact the government can function without the brain, albeit it will be a little problematic. Conversely, however, the body of the government dies if it has only executive power with no legislators. Article four of the constitution addresses the powers that the states and the federal government have. Article 5 is about the amendments of the constitution, article 6 addresses the supremacy clause, and finally article seven ratifies the constitution. So what is it that I find good about our constitution? Well first off I believe that the constitutions greatest success was in dividing the power of the leader’s, this makes it so those who enter this “contract” have fewer liberties taken from them. The sacrifice of one’s own interest, or freedom’s, to be in a “social contract” was a key belief of both Hobbes and Locke. Secondly the Fifth Amendment though a lot shorter than many of the other amendments is probably the most important, I believe. This is because this allows the constitution to be a “living” document that can be changed when the need arises. This when coupled with the elastic clause, which states that there is no way to list all the possible and potential powers of congress, means that the constitution will be prepared to adapt and change to meet nearly any circumstance. According to Rousseau giving a state the best possible constitution will allow the state to live longer, by that logic a constitution that because the U.S. constitution can change indefinitely than the U.S. itself can live indefinitely.