There are a lot of comments here about how the founding fathers intended this or that as if they were a unified group of people with a single vision. This is far from the truth. The original attempt at a governing document wasn’t the constitution, it was the articles of confederation, which failed. The constitution was a compromise. Some wanted a king, some wanted direct democracy and there were people in every shade in the middle.

I read an autobiography of Benjamin Franklin today. He spoke highly of a religious sect that refused to write their laws down. They felt it was absurd to think that they had come up with the perfect laws that would govern all future generations. If they wrote it down, future generations would consider it sacred and would dogmatically enshrine those views rather than improving upon them. Ironic that we do the same to him.