> > Doesn't it, though? Could you imagine the United States without a constitution? It would be completely and utterly different from the society that we know. And I'm not just saying that the mere having of a constitution is all that matters either.
>
> I'd expect a very similar nation, actually. Has the Constitution ever actually stopped a ruling party from doing whatever it wishes?

Yes. Fairly consistently, actually. The Supreme Court, acting as arbiter of the Constitution, has increasingly used its power to strike down Congressional legislation (starting with the Judiciary Act of 1789). Granted, this power of the Supreme Court's isn't explicit in the Constitution itself, but the Constitution forms the basis for the reasons behind the Supreme's Court rulings. Most of the Supreme Court's most famous decisions -- Dredd Scott, Brown vs. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, etc. -- have been direct checks on the actions of popularly elected representatives.

I understand what you're saying, though, and it's an argument similar to one Madison used to justify his initial unwillingness to include a bill of rights in the Constitution. Clearly, were the president, for instance, to decide he was now emperor and he had the military to back him, the paper the Constitution is written on isn't going to stop him. What the Constitution does do, though, is to spell out the framework for a system that makes it difficult for leaders to do these sorts of things.

> How could a Constitution restrain leaders, anyway? Who could have the authority to enforce it?

Why, the Constitution itself answers this: it is the job of the executive branch to enforce the Constitution, which is why the president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Also notice that every member of the armed forces takes an oath to uphold the Constitution, and not a loyalty oath to the president.

> Restraints on the state, it seems to me, have only been enforced in two cases. The first is when the population strongly favors it. For example, in the US we have excellent freedom of speech (which the typical American likes) but quite subdued economic freedom (which the typical American is leery of). The second is when we get ideologues into positions of power, and they restrain themselves. In neither case has the reasoning been much related to actual text of the Constitution.

And yet there have been some fairly unpopular restraints on governments as a direct result of the Constitution. In California, we passed a ballot initiative a few years back (it passed by a pretty large majority of the popular vote) that would have excluded illegal immigrants from receiving a number of governmental services. This was struck down by the Supreme Court because it was in violation of the omnipresent Amendment XIV. This was an unpopular restraint on what government is allowed to do.

Heck, if you look at any of the big cases I mentioned, you'll find unpopular or at least very controversial decisions by the Supreme Court: Dredd Scott killed the ability of the federal government to regulate the expansion of slavery; Brown vs. Board of Education forced desegregated schools on a public (and on governments) that in many cases did not want it; Roe v. Wade continues to be a controversial decision (one, not incidentally, not well-liked by the party currently in control of two branches of the federal government, but note how the decision stands).

> Now, a "moral constitution" could be a very effective thing, where much of the population follows the same moral code. And, though it's unwritten and undergoes changes, that's what I'd say we actually have.

We have that too, sort of, in the sense that we share a loose set of morals and values as a nation. But I think you underestimate the value of a formal, written constitution. Part of what having a written constitution does is to foster an environment of respect for the document. If the legislative and executive branches decided suddenly to ignore the Supreme Court's rulings, there is nothing the Supreme Court could do to stop this. But the public would be outraged, because I think by-and-large the public sees the Constitution as being somewhat sacred -- even with debates over the meanings and extent of some of what it says.

There are, of course, countries that get along fine without formal, written constitutions, but they have a tendency to suffer little constitutional crises every now and then. America has had a few of those (and one sort of resulted in our Civil War), but I think that it's a bit easier for us to resolve them.

Furthermore, we have a constitution that rather brilliantly set up a system of government that is just about perfect for us. Whenever I think about how well executed and tailored to the country's needs federalism is, or how clever the separation of powers is, I am awed by the men who came up with it, despite their having few examples of successful republics to work from.

Stephen