By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
The U.S. Constitution is 238 years old, outlasting most other countries’ constitutions by hundreds of years.
Since Sept. 17, 1787, when the United States signed the U.S. Constitution recognizing the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, the average length of time most countries’ constitutions have existed is between 17 and 19 years, Wood County Common Pleas Judge Matt Reger said during a Constitution Day conversation on Wednesday evening.
“How has this lasted 238 years? What was special about it?” he asked.
The document was developed in response to the American Revolution in 1776.
“We knew we needed a new government. We knew we wanted to go away from a king, and we knew that we were distrustful of a central government,” Reger said. “But we didn’t get rid of our legal system.”
The American legal system is based on English common law where “judges interpret the law and that interpretation becomes precedent or stare decisis, which means that we let the decision stand,” he explained. “The stability of the American legal system was partly due to the retention of the English Common Law system.”
His presentation focused on the Constitution as a legal document. “No matter where you are on the political spectrum, you look to the Constitution as supporting your ideas or your ideology,” he said.
“The truth of the matter, folks, is if we were gathered here in 1776, we would have many of you who would be loyalists for good reason, and many of you would be revolutionaries for good reason,” he said. “When Philadelphia was ruled by the revolutionaries, the loyalists took a beating. And when the loyalists took over, the revolutionaries took a beating. It’s the way it was. Life in the United States has always been filled with discord, disagreement and a lot of other things.”
The current political climate has a lot of people claiming the U.S. is in a period of time that has the most discord; Reger didn’t dispute that the U.S. is in a period of discord among citizens, but he pointed to the time of the Civil War with its deep divide.
Other significant events in constitutional history included the Judiciary Act of 1789, which added inferior courts to the legal system, and Marbury v. Marshall, which established that the Constitution was the “supreme authority” in the United States regarding the determination if a law is constitutionally valid.
“The common law system that said judges review laws and determine them had suddenly made the Supreme Court a co-equal branch,” he said.
Reger also detailed the importance of the 14th Amendment in applying the Bill of Rights and due process to the states.
While the 5th Amendment protects the pursuit of life, liberty and property through due process, the 14th Amendment’s protection adds that states cannot deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
“It took 90 years for most of the protections in the first 10 amendments to be incorporated, but they have been incorporated over time,” he said. “The 20th century was probably the biggest development of the rights.”
When asked if he thought the U.S. is in a constitutional crisis, Reger said, “No, I don’t think we’re in a constitutional crisis because the Constitution’s working. The courts are working. You may not like the result.”
Again, Reger referenced 1861 and the Civil War. “To me, 1861 kind of looks like a constitutional crisis,” he said. “Think about Robert Lincoln, who saw three presidents murdered in front of him (his father in April 1861, William McKinley in May 1881, and James Garfield in September 1901). Is that a constitutional crisis when the president of the United States has been murdered?”
Bottom line, “the system and the process are working. We have great processes, but humans run it, and sometimes humans do some things that are pretty stupid.”
The Bowling Green Exchange Club hosted the Constitution Day presentation to support Americanism and pride in the U.S., one of the service organization’s four missions, said President Tony Lake. The Exchange Club partnered with the Wood County District Public Library and the Bowling Green League of Women Voters. Retired attorney Chet Marcin moderated the conversation.
