Bleyer - Me the people, or, One mans quest to rewrite the constitution of the United States of America

Copyright 2012 by Kevin Bleyer
All rights reserved

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

The portrait of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia on is by Nelson Shanks and is currently on loan to the Harvard University Law School.

The photo on is by Brian Lary.

L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN- P UBLICATION D ATA Bleyer, Kevin.
Me the people: One mans selfless quest to rewrite the constitution of the United States of America / by Kevin Bleyer.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-60412-9
1. Constitutional lawUnited StatesPopular works. I. Title. II. Title: One mans selfless quest to rewrite the constitution of the United States of America.
KF4550.Z9B55 2012
342.73029dc23 2011052582

www.atrandom.com

Cover design: Thomas Alberty

Cover art: Daniel Adel

v3.1

The following is a work of unassailable scholarship. Any errors, omissions, or exaggerations were made only to prove my point.

Whether this is a feat of visionary genius is not for me to say. It is only for others to notice.

CONTENTS
O R , A N Enumerated Register OF
THE W ISDOM R EVEALED H EREIN

The warmest friends and the best supporters the Constitution has do not contend it is free from imperfections; the remedy must come hereafter.

G EORGE W ASHINGTON, 1787

Let us correct the crude essays of our first and unexperienced, although wise, virtuous, and well-meaning councils. Let us provide in our Constitution its revision at stated periods.

T HOMAS J EFFERSON, 1816

While our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives.

B ARACK O BAMA, 2009

I got this.

K EVIN B LEYER, 2012

T HEIR BELOVED BELL WAS IN JEOPARDY .

It had hung dutifully for decades, pealing hourly from its steeple above the Pennsylvania State House, breaking the peace of the Philadelphia streets only to remind its citizens that time had marched on and all was well. But these were no longer peaceful times. It was 1777, a year after America had declared her independence from the British Crown, and only days after her lionhearted general George Washington had suffered a withering defeat at the Battle of Brandywine. All signs were that Philadelphia, the revolutionary capital, might well be the next to fall. Fearing that the kings men would melt any metal they found into British cannons, a few American patriots confiscated their own bellsoon to be known, appropriately, as the Liberty Belland hid it in the safest place they could find: under a pile of horse manure. The gambit worked. The marauding redcoats never got their British hands on our American Liberty.

The lesson learned back then rings as clear today: Sometimes, in order to save something we cherish, we have to shit on it.

USA FIRST CLASS FOREVER!

Dont mock the Constitution! Dont make fun of it. Dont suggest that its not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. Its worked pretty well for over 200 years.