{"id":114949,"date":"2026-02-19T18:26:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=114949"},"modified":"2026-02-19T18:26:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:26:02","slug":"a-couple-of-brief-constitutional-meditations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2026\/02\/a-couple-of-brief-constitutional-meditations.html","title":{"rendered":"A couple of brief constitutional meditations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
The \u201ckey art\u201d poster for our ongoing \u201cBecoming Brigham\u201d series of mini-documentaries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Have you visited becomingbrigham.com<\/a> yet?\u00a0 Four episodes of our new series of mini-documentaries have already gone up online; a fifth will drop on Monday.\u00a0 Don\u2019t fall too<\/em> far behind.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
I\u2019m rather fond of this quaint old document, and wish more people and more politicians were closely acquainted with it. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I saw recently that\u00a0the highly respected Latter-day Saint historian and recent editor of BYU Studies <\/em> Steven C. Harper<\/a> has announced his intention to devote some time over the next while to comment upon the Constitution of the United States<\/a>. \u00a0He reasons that, since Latter-day Saints believe the Constitution to be divinely inspired, paying close attention to it seems a part of his religious duty.<\/p>\n

I was struck by this and, although I don\u2019t necessarily intend to give the subject systematic or sustained attention, I thought that \u2014 for reasons not unlike Professor Harper\u2019s \u2014 I might make at least a few occasional comments on the topic . \u00a0Today, I\u2019ll very briefly allude to two aspects of the Constitution that have always struck me and that I think have been somewhat ignored.<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it significant that Article 1 of the Constitution isn\u2019t about the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. \u00a0It isn\u2019t about the Presidency. \u00a0Today\u2019s imperial presidency, something that has been developing for many decades but has risen to a new high in the second Trump administration, is not, I think, what the framers of the Constitution had in mind.<\/p>\n

Article 1 of the Constitution is about the Legislative Branch. \u00a0The will of the people is to be expressed through Congress. \u00a0The president isn\u2019t even supposed to be popularly elected. \u00a0That\u2019s why we have the Electoral College, although it is, today, merely a shadow of what it was intended to be.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that the Swiss model is applicable to the United States, and I don\u2019t advocate its importation or adoption. \u00a0But I do feel some degree of wistfulness for a system in which an educated and articulate Swiss citizen told me, when I asked him who the president of Switzerland was, told me that he couldn\u2019t quite remember, that it was either Nellio Cellio<\/em> or Cellio Nellio<\/em>. \u00a0In fact, during that year \u2014 the presidency of Switzerland\u2019s seven-member Executive Council rotates annually \u2014 it was\u00a0Nello Celio,\u00a0<\/em>from the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino, south of the Alps.<\/p>\n

Strictly speaking, the president of Switzerland is actually the president of the Swiss Confederation, and primus inter pares<\/em>, first among equals, on the Executive Council of the Confederation. The formal name of the country isn\u2019t really Switzerland at all but, instead, in German,\u00a0Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft<\/i>; in French,\u00a0Conf\u00e9d\u00e9ration suisse<\/i>; in Italian, Confederazione Svizzera<\/i>; in Romansh,\u00a0Confederaziun svizra \u2014 <\/i>all of the preceding four are official, national, spoken languages (used by, respectively, more than 60% of the population, approximately 23%, roughly 8%, and less than 1%, most of the latter of whom also speak German) \u2014 and, in\u00a0Latin,\u00a0C\u014dnfoeder\u0101ti\u014d Helv\u0113tica<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I thought it wonderful that here was a country, Switzerland, in which the news cycle didn\u2019t focus continuously on the country\u2019s president, as if he were some sort of emperor. \u00a0It was and is a country, too, in which the citizenry seemed to be far more involved in local and regional politics in its twenty-six cantons (states or provinces) and far more aware of local leaders and politicians than oriented toward federal matters \u2014 \u00a0as (I think) the Framers of our Constitution intended the United States of America to be. \u00a0(Why do we use singular verbs with the plural subject United States<\/em>? \u00a0When did we begin to do that? \u00a0At the time of the civil war? \u00a0My impression is that, in the antebellum period, we were more prone to say that \u201cThe United States have\u201d or \u201cThe United States are\u201d than to say, quite ungrammatically, \u201cThe United States has\u201d or \u201cThe United States is.\u201d \u00a0We really did regard the United States as a federal republic rather than as a unitary state.<\/p>\n

I later learned that Edward Gibbon, justly famous for his wonderful six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire<\/i> (1776\u20131788), originally wanted to write a\u00a0History of Switzerland<\/i> because of his admiration for Swiss freedom and democracy. \u00a0He worked on that project in the 1760s but ultimately abandoned the effort, leaving it unfinished and unpublished. \u00a0I can well understand Gibbon\u2019s affection for Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Years later, living in Egypt, I was negatively<\/em> impressed by the fact that every evening\u2019s television news broadcast necessarily began with several minutes of video footage about the \u0631\u0626\u064a\u0633 \u062c\u0645\u0647\u0648\u0631\u064a\u0629 \u0645\u0635\u0631 \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a\u0629, the President of the Republic, visiting a rural village or praying in a mosque or addressing a bored and uncomfortable group of rubber-stamp legislators crammed too tightly together in the People\u2019s Assembly and applauding obligatorily after every presidential sentence. \u00a0Egypt, in my view, has never entirely outgrown the idea of a pharaoh.<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given some of what I wrote above, I\u2019m a strong believer in federalism, and it should be no surprise that I didn\u2019t like President Trump\u2019s recent description of the states as mere functional subordinates of the federales<\/em> (\u201cTrump says states are agents of federal government in elections\u201d<\/a>) and that I can\u2019t endorse his calls to \u201cnationalize elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

My opposition to the federalization of, well, just about everything is of ancient date. \u00a0It goes back a very long way. \u00a0I recall seeing a sign on Valley Boulevard, in Rosemead, California, back before I was married. \u00a0It announced that the improvements on the street were being funded by some sort of federal program. \u00a0The \u201cimprovements\u201d consisted of replacing ordinary crosswalks \u2014 painted lines on an asphalt surface \u2014 with red bricks situated flush with the street, and placing planters and trees along the sidewalk in such a way that, I estimate, 20% of the parking spaces along the side of the street would be eliminated.<\/p>\n

Now, it wasn\u2019t that I opposed such \u201cimprovements.\u201d \u00a0They seemed fairly unobjectionable to me, perhaps even attractive. \u00a0But I could not see why they should be a federal project, involving federal money derived from taxing shopkeepers in Boston and farmers in Iowa. \u00a0If ever there were local matters, to be decided upon locally and paid for by local residents, such street projects surely seemed local to me<\/em>. \u00a0Ideally, too, for purposes of prudent spending and sound governance, I think that costs and benefits should be as closely connected as possible, so that voters can make intelligent and grounded decisions.<\/p>\n

Which is a very hasty and summary way of leading up to another part of the Constitution, the Tenth Amendment (which was ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights), which I think is almost completely neglected.<\/p>\n

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The federal government of the United States is now fully involved in almost every aspect of state and local life, in agriculture and education and housing and road construction and healthcare and everywhere else, in ways that I find difficult to square with the Tenth Amendment.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Have you visited becomingbrigham.com yet?\u00a0 Four episodes of our new series of mini-documentaries have already gone up online; a fifth will drop on Monday.\u00a0 Don\u2019t fall too far behind. I saw recently that\u00a0the highly respected Latter-day Saint historian and recent editor of BYU Studies Steven C. Harper has announced his intention to devote some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":31329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39661,3286,10097,2905,788,29456],"class_list":["post-114949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-article-i","tag-constitution","tag-federalism","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-mormon","tag-tenth-amendment"],"yoast_head":"\nA couple of brief constitutional meditations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  Have you visited becomingbrigham.com yet?\u00a0 Four episodes of our new series of mini-documentaries have already gone up online; a fifth will drop on\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2026\/02\/a-couple-of-brief-constitutional-meditations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A couple of brief constitutional meditations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  Have you visited becomingbrigham.com yet?\u00a0 Four episodes of our new series of mini-documentaries have already gone up online; a fifth will drop on\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2026\/02\/a-couple-of-brief-constitutional-meditations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sic et Non\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-20T01:26:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/02\/800px-Bill_of_Rights_Pg1of1_AC.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"722\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2026\/02\/a-couple-of-brief-constitutional-meditations.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2026\/02\/a-couple-of-brief-constitutional-meditations.html\",\"name\":\"A couple of brief constitutional meditations\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-20T01:26:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-20T01:26:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\"},\"description\":\"  Have you visited becomingbrigham.com yet?\u00a0 Four episodes of our new series of mini-documentaries have already gone up online; 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