Essay #3 The Constitutional Meaning Is Changing

One formal method for integrating an amendment to the constitution is with the approbation of two thirds of both the House and the Senate. The proposed amendment must then be ratified by three fourths of the state legislature. Another method for fixing the constitution requires the supposed amendment to be voted for by two thirds of both the House and the Senate, same as afore. But the amendment must then be ratified by three fourths of state ratifying conventions. Informal methods commonly include rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court via a judicial review. This is where the Court rules on cases brought afore them predicated on today’s perception of the constitution. Brown v. Board of Inculcation in 1954 is an example. In this case, the Supreme Court overruled the precedent findings from Plessy v. Ferguson and eliminated the “separate but equal” doctrine, finding it unconstitutional. This was not a formal amendment process; however, it altered the definition of the 14th Amendment. An executive order by the President is another informal method. During wartime, the president has the potency to make decisions that transmute the construal of the Constitution. In WWII FDR’s confined all the Japanese Americans that lived in the western parts of the U.S. believing that they may be a threat to the country. This breaches the 5th Amendment, however no formal amendment was ever drafted. Informal methods are utilized more often than formal methods because they are more expeditious and more facile. The formal amendment process was designed to be lengthy and arduous to obviate dispensable and undesired alterations. It is littered with checks and balances and some formal amendment forms have historically never even been utilized. With informal methods, the regime can cut corners to expedite the process in times of need, albeit that was not what the founding fathers had pristinely envisioned.