Explain to me the antiquated parts of the Constitution. I hear people make that silly statement but haven't heard specific reasons why.
Simple reason why the rule of law is important, because the Constitution was formed to treat all citizens equally. It was built to create a Republic where the rule of law is supreme, not a democracy that sways from one extreme of stupidity to another (or sways and never recovers.)
The proper word is Isonomia from its greek roots. Whereas a Democracy (Demokratia) is vulnerable to the whims of ignorance (Income Tax being a prime example of this) by the population, a Republic founded upon the principles of Isonomia, of all being equal before law, with out any artificial distinctions such as gender, sex, race, religion or wealth being allowed to influence the law being granted permits a solid foundation.
A Republic while it holds is like a house built on stone, while a Democracy is like a house built upon sand. One severe storm and the house is washed away, one tyrannical ruler, and the house is destroyed, one bad decision and the majority becomes tyrants and oppressors of the minority. Under a republic it is not possible, under the system established by the constitution, no amount of effort would have eroded the fair equality of all (after the passage of the 14th Amendment, though some would argue it is flawed with the twisting of its intent to allow for the recognition of corporate persons.)
The passage of the 16th Amendment violated the spirit that the Constitution was founded upon, the idea that no matter how mean, or noble, or virtuous or weak, no matter what color a person's flesh they would be given equal protection by the law, and punished equally by the law.
The constitution guarantees this and limits the government to ensure it remains so.
The powers denied the government, such as the ability to pass poll taxes with out apportionment per capita ensured that it would endure. The limitations of government interference in the freedom of speech (say what you want, words are not actions), freedom of religion (believe what you want, beliefs are not actions), freedom of assembly (be friends with who you want, friends do not define a person) granted people protection from arbitrary decisions made by capricious agents of the government.
The additional amendments, right to bear arms (have your weapons, we trust you to use them responsibly and in defense of your rights), right to freedom from unjustified search and seizure (secure in papers, effects, and residences) by government agents who might be under the sway of politicians in an attempt to dig up dirt for their own gain. The right to not incriminate one's self under the 5th Amendment (let the accuser prove their accusations, with out being able to use coercion to achieve their ends, or clever rhetorical games intended to trick and trap their victims). All were aimed at ensuring that the government was not able to treat people differently from one another.
It was a Republic and not a Democracy.
That's just the difference as I see them.
As far as the Constitution itself.
It's simplicity, elegance, and separation of Federal from State is what lended it its power. The United States was a Republic, and the States were guaranteed to be Republics, but inside those borders each state was free to go its separate ways. If the provincial backwaters of California wanted to try socialism they could do so with out interfering in the rights of Ohioians to remain Capitalistic. The states would be equal as long as they respected the rule of law.
The states would remain sovereign as long as they provided for the rule of law, the rule of the public embodiment of what is good and what is wrong. It was a simple, elegant document that was intended to prevent lobbyists from carving loopholes for their employers. It was designed to endure experimentation by the states by ensuring that they held their sovereignty.
Unfortunately, it contained flaws...
The first was the Necessary & Proper Clause which lended itself to corruption by power-hungry bureaucrats that wanted to expand the federal at the expense of the states and interfere in their right to govern themselves through chartering corporations at a federal level (such as the infamous First and Second Banks of the United States, and the still more infamous Federal Reserve)
The second of course was the interstate commerce clause which has since been used as justification to interfere in goods that are produced anywhere in the nation on the thin excuse that they might contain out of state components. Furniture manufactured in Pennsylvania might contain Pine or Douglas Fir from Washington and Oregon. It was an absurd pretense that was abused.
Giant loopholes that semis were driven through destroying the rest.
The fatal flaw was the fact that it did not protect the states rights to leave the union. It bonded the states together into perpetuity, another abused statement that lead to the Civil War, when the South, under the ideals of incorporated into American Politics at the end of World War I that any people had a right to self-governance, was denied that very same right.
Another major flaw was the amendment process. Unanimous consent was not required. The majority was free to exercise tyranny over the minority of the states.
However, those flaws were not vulnerable as long as virtuous and honorable men lead the nation. It was only when they were abused by the likes of Alexander Hamilton (First Bank of the United States) that they became liabilities in a document that was intended to secure the right of States and Individuals to be free of the repeated abuses of a centralized government.
It never ceases to amaze me that so few people understand that it wasn't just taxation with out representation that drove the revolution. It was the very idea that people were obligated, even when granted some autonomy, to bow down to a monarch over 3,000 miles away, and completely out of touch with events. It was the insult of having to deal with bureaucrats granted powers by the crown to interfere in the governance of the colonies that lead to the revolution. It wasn't just taxes, it was the sanctioning of monopolies by a State and their protection by the same.
It was the insult that the colonies were nothing more than subjects, and not highly valued subjects that were refused their freedom to trade with who they wished in what goods they wished. It was the insult that they were held in economic thralldom to a nation that they had fled of their own choice.
The voices of the Enlightenment, Locke, Voltaire, forged the American Nation. Their ideals of Isonomia being the highest responsibility of the state were reflected in the very words crafted in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
"That all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights among these rights are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
"We, the people," not the government, not the colonies, the people, "in order to form ..."
There was no talk of an all controlling state. There was no desire for a centralized defederalized government. The colonies were nations in their own rights, and that's how the founders thought of them. They were not Americans, they were New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians, Virginians, all united by a common cause to form a government that would pool their resources in commerce and military power in the defense of their territory. It was all for one and one for all, and all were equal.
The Constitution was the bloody abortion of the Articles of Confederation and held so much in common with that document that the two are practically inseparable in their intent and their design. If the vision of United States being a collection of sovereign states was the goal of the Constitution, Lincoln's refusal to grant the south their wishes to remain true to the wishes of their people, to their rights of self-determination, that shattered it, and sounded the death-knell of the principles that the founders argued for in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers.
The states were to be sovereign, and the people above even them, with the federal government just being a shared effort amongst the states to give them collective bargaining power.
"Don't Tread on Us."
By themselves the colonies were nothing, less than nothing, the equivalent of North Korea compared to the United States in the modern age. A Gardener Snake not to be feared. Together, they brought down an empire, they formed a dangerous whole that could use their resources to bring down the world's pre-eminent empire despite heavily stacked odds. It wasn't that they intended to remain together. They intended to remain allies, not bed-partners. They intended to retain their independence and their sovereignty not be tied to each other like a gross mockery of Siamese Twins made up of thirteen conjoined individuals.
