Denel Wardell for the People

I have decided to start blogging what the Constitution means to me. This is strictly what it means to me...not any legal review or anything like that. Just my opinion.

I am not promising to do this on any certain day of the week or anything. I am just going to take it piece by piece and write my thoughts...starting with the preamble.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,

establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common

defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to

ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the

United States of America.

We the People of the United States:

Who are the people? Do you just have to be on our soil to be one of "We the People?" I don't think so. I think you have to be somebody willing to uphold what we stand for. Somebody who loves who we are. Someone who believes in the foundation of our nation.

In Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty:

Obviously we are not perfect. We have made our mistakes, not only individually, but together as a nation. But when our founding fathers put together this constitution, they were striving for something better...something to overcome our shortcomings...something to set us apart from other nations.

Take note of the word "domestic". Normally when the term "domestic" is used, it is just talking about on our own land...it is not talking about the whole world. So, I believe here is where it is limiting the reach of our constitution. Our constitution doesn't provide for the world, or even visitors to our nation...and definitely not invaders of our nation...but actually the people of our nation as I described above.

I want to touch on "promote the general Welfare". I believe our founding fathers were using the noun version of the term "welfare", definition: the state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, happiness, well-being, or prosperity . I do not think they ever intended for the government to be responsible for the individual lives of the citizens of our nation. I believe they wanted to provide for the opportunity of all in our nation to be able to obtain their own good fortune, happiness, well-being, or prosperity.

To ourselves and our Posterity:

Our founding fathers were looking to future generations. This was not a document just for them, but for their children. They were establishing a foundation for our nation to grow. They intended for their descendants to follow this document.

Do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America:

There are two different definitions for ordain:

1: to invest officially with ministerial or priestly authority

2: to establish or order by appointment, decree, or law

I think both of these definitions may have been a part of what they were writing. We know our founding fathers believed our rights were given to us by God. They were not something that any government entity had the power to give or take away from. Therefore, I believe that they may have believed they were ordaining this document as a work of ministry, to a degree, and that is why they used both the word "ordain" and "establish". If they just meant the second definition in using the word "ordain", wouldn't that have been redundant? On the other hand, I think they do use the word in the sense of the second definition because they were establishing the law of the land.