There’s a tendency to over-romanticize the democratic leanings of the founders — and, in fact, I believe, to overrate democracy in general. The founders knew that the tyranny of the masses was always a lurking possibility, so they went out of their way to avoid that eventuality. Hence, the Bill of Rights, which prevents the majority from having complete sway over individual interests. That’s why our laws can be declared unconstitutional, because there are certain liberties (supposedly) not subject to majority rule.

I, personally, don’t necessarily believe in universal democracy. I believe in universal freedom, with constitutional guarantees. I shudder when I hear our president speak of bringing “democracy” to the Middle East. Theocratic governments can easily come to power — and retain that power — in a democratic state. Such a democratically elected theocracy, by definition, would be opposed to individual liberty, particularly to the freedom of the minority that doesn’t conform to the religious orthodoxy.

Democracy, in and of itself, is not the panacea that simple-minded speechmakers would have us believe. The founders knew this.

Apologies for not being clear. Of course some of the amendments do REVISE the original text. What I meant to say is the original text has never been, shall I say, crossed out, or deleted, or removed. However it has been updated many times by amendments. The point being the difference between a secular text and supposed divine texts in holy books.

“Also, although “a government of the people, by the people, for the people” is a famous phrase, it first appeared in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. ”

You’re correct. I didn’t mean to imply those words appear in the Constitution, and although they weren’t used at the time of founding, in my opinion, they accurately reflect how the US was founded. Although this is my opinion and I might to be wrong.

I’m not sure what you mean by “The U.S. was founded as a republic, not a democracy”… the US is a democratic republic, is it not? Or are you saying it wasn’t necessarily originally founded as such?

“(The founders — perhaps foreseeing the election of populist idiots like George W. Bush — did not feel comfortable entrusting their newly free country to the “mob.”

This is why I think the bicameral system of a Senate and a House of Representatives it a good idea. So each state has an equal vote regardless of size, but the general population also speaks by number of voices. And the two together affect legislation.
(However, none of this stopped the man with less votes getting elected in Bush’s case! – someone will have to explain that to me!)

Thanks for the book recommendation, and cheers again for the comments!

You said: Granted, no part of the original text has ever been revised or removed, but the Constitution has been amended 27 times!

Some of the Amendments do very explicitly revise the original text (XII, XVII). Other Amendments (opinions differ on which these are) revise the Constitution implicitly. And, by the way, one of the Amendments (XXI) was even used to repeal a previous Amendment (XVIII).

Also, although “a government of the people, by the people, for the people” is a famous phrase, it first appeared in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The U.S. was founded as a republic, not a democracy. It could be argued that government “by” the people was not really part of the original package. (The founders — perhaps foreseeing the election of populist idiots like George W. Bush — did not feel comfortable entrusting their newly free country to the “mob.” In fact, at least some of the first ten Amendments were written specifically to guarantee that rabble-rousers would not be able to remove certain fundamental rights merely by democratic legislation.)

If you’re interested in the American Constitution, I recommend a fairly simple book as an introduction: The Words We Live By by Linda R. Monk.

I’d also recommend you read “United States of Europe”. The EU is also a great project, especially in the area of secularism (see the recent declaration by the Council of Europe) and I do think that we, the British, need to be more involved.