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Can the U.S. Constitution Be Weaponized Against Itself?
Our Founding Fathers didn’t plan on this one.
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The air in Philadelphia was thick with sweat, ink, and indignation during the summer of 1787. Delegates, crammed into a hot chamber, argued about everything: taxes, tariffs, and the terrifying possibility of democracy itself.
Alexander Hamilton waved his hands like an irate conductor, shouting for a strong central government, while Patrick Henry refused to attend the convention, protesting that he “smelled a rat.” That “rat” was a dig at Hamilton. Henry feared a strong central government would undermine state sovereignty.
These were not polite debates. They were dishy, gossipy showdowns over the soul of a fledgling nation.
But there was one figure whose name kept surfacing in the back-and-forth — Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. The room grew quieter when his name was uttered. Only the Bible was quoted more at the Constitutional Convention than Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws. The French philosopher was so admired by our Founding Fathers that he was even called the “oracle” of political wisdom.
