July 10, 2006

Lecture at AUA "Continuing Challenge of the American Constitution" Presented by Ambassador John Evans

On July 10, 2006, the United States Ambassador to Armenia, the Honorable John Evans, gave a speech to students, faculty, and alumni at the American University of Armenia. A year ago Ambassador spoke about the "Continuing Effect of the American Revolution." The focus of this year's speech was "The Continuing Challenge of the American Constitution." The Ambassador was introduced by AUA President Haroutune Armenian.

"The struggle to build democratic institutions and establish democratic practices is a long and difficult one that must be fought anew by each generation," explained Ambassador Evans as he stressed the difficulty of building democratic institutions. The Ambassador also talked about tolerance, honesty ,and responsibility while highlighting that, "Even the best written Constitution does not itself suffice to create a democracy. There are customs, methods and procedures, in short, habits of democracy that put democratic flesh on the bones provided by the basic provisions of the fundamental law. A democracy may function minimally without these habits, but for it to flourish fully requires that everyone play his or her part."

In his speech, Ambassador Evans also mentioned that the job of building a democracy in the Republic of Armenia is well on its way and highlighted the importance of young peoples' participation in the building of democracy in Armenia. "You, the young people of the Republic of Armenia - this young state of an ancient nation -- will be called upon to make your contribution to the growth and success of democracy in Armenia." Ambassador Evans stressed the advantage of higher education at the American University of Armenia. "You are to be counted as among the elite of your nation. You bear a special responsibility for your country's development and for its destiny which, I am convinced, will be to take its place among the nations of the world as a fully-fledged democracy," the Ambassador concluded.

More than 160 people attended the lecture and question and answer period. The lecture was followed by a reception for Ambassador Evans and his wife, Donna, in appreciation of the Ambassador's support of the American University of Armenia.

The full text of Ambassador Evan's lecture follows.

The Continuing Challenge of the American Constitution

A year ago I spoke to you about the "Continuing Effect of the American Revolution." Tonight I will talk about something perhaps even more controversial, the "Continuing Challenge of the American Constitution." The American Constitution is a dynamic document. It has endured for over two hundred years, but has also been amended twenty-seven times -- so far -- and there are always additional amendments in the works. The Framers of our Constitution were a remarkable group of men, in terms of their education, their life experiences, and their dedication to the ideals of democracy and good governance. But they were also, for the most part, wealthy men. Some of them owned slaves. None of them were women. And the document they signed in Philadelphia at the Constitutional Convention contained within it the seeds of many future controversies that continue to the present day. For example, the Constitution left out of consideration those many inhabitants of the United States who were still slaves. It would take a terrible civil war seventy-five years later and three constitutional amendments (the Thirteenth that freed the slaves, the Fourteenth that provided equal protection under the law, and the Fifteenth that granted the right to vote) to settle that controversy once and for all. It would take until 1920 for the States to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote. [Note: The first Armenian Republic adopted an electoral law in March 1919 that gave the vote to all adult citizens, including women.] Other controversies, over the precise meaning of the Constitution and its amendments, remain unresolved and highly contentious to this day. The struggle to build democratic institutions and establish democratic practices is a long and difficult one that must be fought anew by each generation.

Certain shortcomings in the American Constitution were evident already at the time it was written. Almost immediately - within six months, to be precise -- the basic document was amended ten times. The first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, are cited, in some context or another, every day of our national life. The Bill of Rights brought to the Constitution a needed rebalancing in favor of people who had experienced tyranny and bad government under King George III and were deeply distrustful of government. At the time, the very idea of a strong central government was anathema to many, and one of the first political parties (the Anti-Federalists) was formed around opposition to it.

Other changes took longer to put in place. The Framers of the Constitution purposely made the process of amending the Constitution difficult, requiring the consent of three fourths of the States of the Union. The most recent amendment to the Constitution, achieved in 1992, prevents Members of Congress from voting themselves a salary increase without first letting one election intervene. Two amendments you might find odd were the Eighteenth (1919), which banned the production and sale of alcoholic beverages, and the Twenty-First (1933), which repealed Prohibition and whose ratification was greeted by great jubilation on the streets of New York and Baltimore.

Ratification of the Constitution in 1787 did not put an end to fights over its interpretation. Beyond the formal amendments, there have been many interpretations of the language of the Constitution by the courts. Unusual among the nations of the world, the United States leaves it to Federal judges at every level to find that a law is unconstitutional, with the Supreme Court having the final say. Some of these judicial decisions have been hugely important. Perhaps the most significant such decision in U.S. history came in the case of Marbury v. Madison, which established the primacy of the Supreme Court over the Executive and Legislative branches of government when interpreting the law, giving to it the last word in saying precisely what the Constitution really means. Another Supreme Court decision that changed the face of America was Brown v. Board of Education. This amendment upheld the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment: essentially the Court said that Americans of whatever race had an equal right to education. Although implementation of this landmark decision was slow at first, it set forth the legal standard that ended racial segregation in America´s schools.

Beyond the amendments to and interpretations of the original Constitution, there are traditions of democracy that either were borrowed from the rich political history and practice of Great Britain or developed on their own. One of the most famous of these was the decision of our first President, George Washington, not to allow himself to be proclaimed a monarch, as some of his supporters wanted, and not to seek a third term of office. The Constitution had not put any limits on the number of possible terms to be served by the Nation´s chief executive, but George Washington´s decision set a lasting precedent that was not broken until Franklin Roosevelt ran for a third term on the eve of the Second World War. The current limit of two presidential terms was set by the Twenty-Second Amendment, adopted in 1951.

It has been said that, in the area of foreign policy, the United States Constitution is "an invitation to unending struggle," so little does it specify about how foreign policy is to be made. Indeed, although the power of the President to conduct foreign policy seems on paper to be virtually unlimited, except for the power of the purse and the review of nominations exercised by the Senate, there have been times in our history when strong figures in the Congress have been dominant. A famous example was Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, whose opposition to the League of Nations doomed it to failure. But over the years, the Executive and the Legislative branches have developed highly effective ways of cooperating with each other on foreign policy, few of them actually detailed in the Constitution. One can truly say that the Constitution provides Americans with a framework for a great national discussion, often as not characterized by a clash of opposing philosophies. Certainly in a society as diverse as ours, the differences of opinion are many and at times have been deep.

Going back to the Framers, let us recall that they were men of all walks of life, men who took, in the main, a dim view of human nature. They had studied the Classics, and they believed, with the Roman poet Horace (Epistles), that "you can throw human nature out at the door, but it will rush back in at the window." In short, they believed that human nature was fixed, that Man could not be improved. Many of the Framers also believed as a religious conviction that Man, since Adam, was forever condemned to a fallen state, a state of sin. But while these men did not believe in the perfectibility of Man, they did believe that the greed and temptation of Man - his vices - could be controlled by the right sort of checks and balances, properly designed and enshrined in a fundamental law.

The greatest achievement of the Framers of the American Constitution, building on the traditions of English history, was to divide secular Power into legislative, executive and judicial branches such that the Congress was put in charge of writing the laws, the President was charged with enforcing them, and the Courts were empowered to interpret them. But in addition to this basic division of power - call it a "strategic" division - there are also numerous "tactical" checks and balances that prevent daily abuses of power from taking place, or, if they do take place, provide for the resulting damage to be corrected through legal or political means.

I should at this point mention the importance of the media. The media play the role of an unelected, but nonetheless crucial, fourth branch of government. Thomas Jefferson said that, given the choice, he would rather live without a government than without a free press. It is the press, standing on the Constitution´s guarantee of freedom of speech, that, by bringing abuses, corruption and error to public attention, and by defining, each and every day, the issues and choices facing a democratic society, provides the people with the means to they need to hold government accountable. For the ultimate check on governmental power is the people themselves, for whose benefit democratic governments are formed.

Even the best written Constitution - and let us recall that Great Britain, a great democracy, does not have a written constitution as such - does not itself suffice to create a democracy. There are customs, methods and procedures, in short, habits of democracy, that put democratic flesh on the bones provided by the basic provisions of the fundamental law. A democracy may function minimally without these habits, but for it to flourish fully requires that everyone play his or her part.

What are those habits of democracy?

First, tolerance. Alexis de Tocqueville identified a potential "tyranny of the majority" as one of the perils of American democracy when he toured the country in the first half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, if the majority, be they Bolsheviks or simply the partisans of one political party or another that happens to be dominant, do not have a decent respect for the opinions of the minority, democracy ultimately will not flourish. If the rule is "kto-kogo" (Russian for "who-whom"), that is, a determination to destroy one´s opponent utterly, then one has not a real democracy, but rather a tyranny, which may, by eliminating alternative views and approaches, eventually result in alternating tyrannies. Another way to express this thought is to say that the participants in a democracy must show a basic level of mutual respect for each other. Only when a citizen is willing to listen to the opinions of others, and to entertain the possibility that what others say will influence his thinking, does he himself earn the right also to be heard. Among the habits of democracy, in second place I would cite honesty. Now the Framers of the American Constitution would be the last to assert that the normal state of Man is to be honest in all his dealings. They had seen and experienced, all of them, the worst and the best of humankind. But they also came out of the Judeo-Christian tradition in which, ultimately, each of us stands before our Maker at the Last Judgment, and they did accept that a man´s oath, taken on a Bible or not, was his true word. When we enter into public office in the United States, we swear not only to execute the duties of that office to the best of our abilities, but also to uphold and defend the Constitution. We take a similar oath before testifying in court or before committees of the Congress. It may seem quaint to some non-Americans, but we Americans take it very seriously. We believe it. "A man´s word is his bond," as we say. One might sum up the American approach as Ronald Reagan once did: "trust but verify." Honesty truly is the best policy, at the individual and the societal level, including -- most obviously -- in business.

Third, among the habits of democracy, I would name responsibility. By this I mean accepting that everyone in a democracy bears a degree of accountability for the overall outcome, especially of his or her own actions. Elected officials ultimately are responsible to the voters who elected them. Appointed officials are responsible to those who appointed and confirmed them in office, and ultimately also to the people. All officials are responsible for the revenues that are raised through taxation to be spent for what the Constitution terms the "general Welfare." And the citizens of the country are of course responsible before the law, as well as bearing an overall responsibility to inform themselves about the issues of the day, to choose good leaders, through free and fair elections, and to stand up for their own rights if and when they are challenged. Citizens who do not value and defend their own rights as citizens will ultimately get the government they deserve.

Ladies and Gentlemen, professors and students of the American University in Armenia: Taken together, my talk to you last year and what I have said this evening should make it clear that the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the traditions of our democracy, together amount to a call for continuous reform. Put another way, building democracy is a never-ending challenge. Surely this is as true for my country, which has just celebrated its two hundred and thirtieth birthday, as it is for countries just starting to build democratic institutions. Perfecting the essential rules and institutions of democracy and developing the highly desirable habits of democracy is a job each generation must face anew, as the old generation passes from the scene and a new generation rises up. You, the young people of the Republic of Armenia -- this young state of an ancient nation -- will be called upon to make your contribution to the growth and success of democracy in Armenia. You have had the advantage of higher education here at the American University. You are to be counted as among the elite of your nation. You bear a special responsibility for your country´s development and for its destiny, which, I am convinced, will be to take its place among the nations of the world as a fully-fledged democracy. I wish you, and all your fellow citizens, strength, determination and success.