Of course the Founders disagreed on what the final rules should be. But once those rules were agreed to and memorialized in the written Constitution, it's the constitution that counts. Using arguments by the "losers" of the arguments makes no sense and has nothing to do with strict interpretation. You have to go to the written final words for the rules. Unfortunately, justices have read more into those words than are there in many cases enacting de facto laws never intended by the people or enacted by the Congress. It's one of the reasons we have a huge, abusive, out-of-control central government, something all the Founders never intended.
The US Constitution is an
extraordinarily short document that will fit in your pocket. As originally written, in longhand on parchment, it is all of 4 pages long including all of the signatures. The first 10 amendments added another page. I mention this only to point out that it is a document that is long on the framework of government and relatively short on specific "rules" of governing which are largely left to the various branches of government contained in the framework to sort out. Just to be clear, I'm
not saying there are no "rules" in the Constitution. I'm only saying that it devotes a good deal more time to laying out the structure of government than to what laws the Congress should pass, how the Executive Branch should implement them, or how courts should rule on those laws and implementations by which we are governed.
It was the object of a great deal of interpreting by its authors prior to ratification, subsequent to ratification, and by the generations that have followed for centuries. The brevity of the proposed Constitution, while it was being debated in the various states during the ratification process, required a lengthy series of 85 essays (now called the Federalist Papers) that interpreted the meaning, benefits, and words of the Constitution in order to promote the plan to the states and to counter the published essays of those opposed to the new Constitution in what have become known as the Anti-Federalist papers.
The Federalist Papers essays were written by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, who were the leading proponents of the need for a new Constitution, and by John Jay the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Because the vast majority were written by Hamilton and Madison, who were instrumental in the drafting and adoption of the Constitution, the Federalist Papers are given great weight and are the most referenced documents in court decisions aside from the Constitution itself.
Here's an excerpt from
Federalist 34: "Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities. There ought to be a CAPACITY to provide for future contingencies as they may happen; and as these are illimitable in their nature, it is impossible safely to limit that capacity."
*The use of all capital letters in the word "capacity" is in the original document by Hamilton. It is has not been altered by me.Not only did the authors of the Constitution begin to disagree with each other as to their interpretations of the intent and meaning of the document immediately after it was ratified, they changed their individual interpretations at different times and under varying circumstances. One example of this is Madison, who as a congressman in the first session of Congress following ratification, lead opposition to Hamilton's proposal for establishing the First Bank of the United States as unconstitutional, but was defeated. Later, when serving as President, he changed his mind and
proposed establishment of the Second Bank of the United States (after the term of the First had expired) as he had come to believe it necessary for orderly government and therefore no longer interpreted it as unconstitutional. In fact, Madison as President reversed himself on many policies that he had earlier opposed on constitutional grounds.
So please forgive me if my eyes roll or I happen to cringe when I hear someone today claim to speak for what "
all the Founders never intended" or intended.
