question: If the constitution is such an important document, why is it constantly attacked by people hired to protect it?
comment: Not sure I fully understand your question but it may help to explain that people have wildly different political views, and their interpretation of the constitution varies. Even with things like federal judges and supreme court justices, they have differing opinions on how to interpret the constitution as it relates to modern issues.
passages: The amount of deference that should be given to "The Federalist Papers" in constitutional interpretation has always been somewhat controversial. As early as 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall noted in the famous case "McCulloch v. Maryland", that "the opinions expressed by the authors of that work have been justly supposed to be entitled to great respect in expounding the Constitution. No tribute can be paid to them which exceeds their merit; but in applying their opinions to the cases which may arise in the progress of our government, a right to judge of their correctness must be retained." In a letter to Thomas Ritchie in 1821, he stated that "the legitimate meaning of the Instrument must be derived from the text itself; or if a key is to be sought elsewhere, it must be not in the opinions or intentions of the Body which planned & proposed the Constitution, but in the sense attached to it by the people in their respective State Conventions where it recd. all the authority which it possesses."
   Section::::Criticism of the Constitution.
  
  Section::::Criticism of the Constitution.:Expand democracy.
  
  In the early twentieth century Lochner era, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional various state laws that limited labor contracts. The Constitution was criticized as putting the government at the beck and call of big business.
   BULLET::::- 2008: "The New York Times" reporter Linda Greenhouse for her body of work covering the U.S. Supreme Court
  
  Section::::Board of directors.
  
  The Constitution Project is governed by a board of directors. The board is currently chaired by Armando Gomez, a partner at the law firm of Skadden Arps who previously served as an attorney-advisor to the IRS and as chief counsel to the National Commission on Restructuring the Internal Revenue Service. Other members of the board include:
  
  BULLET::::- David Beier : Managing director at Bay City Capital LLC and former Chief Domestic Policy Adviser to Vice President Al Gore
   I realize that many good and able men have eloquently spoken and written, sometimes in rhapsodical strains, about the duty of this Court to keep the Constitution in tune with the times. The idea is that the Constitution must be changed from time to time, and that this Court is charged with a duty to make those changes. For myself, I must, with all deference, reject that philosophy. The Constitution makers knew the need for change, and provided for it. Amendments suggested by the people's elected representatives can be submitted to the people or their selected agents for ratification. That method of change was good for our Fathers, and, being somewhat old-fashioned, I must add it is good enough for me.
   BULLET::::- If the people come to believe that the constitution is not a text like other texts; if it means, not what it says or what it was understood to mean, but what it should mean, in light of the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society, they will look for qualifications other than impartiality, judgment, and lawyerly acumen in those whom they elect to interpret it. More specifically, they will look for people who agree with them as to what those evolving standards have evolved to; who agree with them as to what the constitution ought to be. If the courts are free to write the Constitution anew, they will write it the way the majority wants; the appointment and confirmation process will see to that. This suggests the end of the Bill of Rights, whose meaning will be committed to the very body it was meant to protect against: the majority. By trying to make the Constitution do everything that needs doing from age to age, we shall have caused it to do nothing at all.
   "Before I part with this case I wish to make it clear that what I have said in this judgment is not an expression of my final opinion but only an expression of certain doubts which have assailed me regarding a question of paramount importance to the citizens of our country: to know whether the basic features of the Constitution under which we live and to which we owe allegiance are to endure for all time -or at least for the foreseeable future - or whether the yard no more enduring than the implemental and subordinate provisions of the Constitution."
   Relating to the pragmatic argument, it is further argued that if judges were denied the opportunity to reflect on changes to modern society in interpreting the scope of Constitutional rights, the resulting Constitution either would not reflect current mores and values, or would necessitate a constant amendment process to reflect our changing society.
   This pragmatist objection is central to the idea that the Constitution should be seen as a living document. Under this view, for example, constitutional requirements of "equal rights" should be read with regard to current standards of equality, and not those of decades or centuries ago, because the alternative would be unacceptable.
  
  Section::::Living constitution.:Original intent.
  
  In addition to pragmatist arguments, most proponents of the living Constitution argue that the Constitution was deliberately written to be broad and flexible to accommodate social or technological change over time. Edmund Randolph, in his Draft Sketch of Constitution, wrote this:
   Additionally, when interpreting a legal document, courts are usually interested in understanding the document as its authors did and their motivations for creating it; as a result, the courts have cited the Preamble for evidence of the history, intent and meaning of the Constitution as it was understood by the Founders. Although revolutionary in some ways, the Constitution maintained many common law concepts (such as "habeas corpus", trial by jury, and sovereign immunity), and courts deem that the Founders' perceptions of the legal system that the Constitution created (i.e., the interaction between what it changed and what it kept from the British legal system) are uniquely important because of the authority "the People" invested them with to create it. Along with evidence of the understandings of the men who debated and drafted the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention, the courts are also interested in the way that government officials have put into practice the Constitution's provisions, particularly early government officials, although the courts reserve to themselves the final authority to determine the Constitution's meaning. However, this focus on historical understandings of the Constitution is sometimes in tension with the changed circumstances of modern society from the late 18th century society that drafted the Constitution; courts have ruled that the Constitution must be interpreted in light of these changed circumstances. All of these considerations of the political theory behind the Constitution have prompted the Supreme Court to articulate a variety of special rules of construction and principles for interpreting it. For example, the Court's rendering of the purposes behind the Constitution have led it to express a preference for broad interpretations of individual freedoms.
   This Court, limited in function in accordance with that premise, does not serve its high purpose when it exceeds its authority, even to satisfy justified impatience with the slow workings of the political process. For when, in the name of constitutional interpretation, the Court adds something to the Constitution that was deliberately excluded from it, the Court, in reality, substitutes its view of what should be so for the amending process.
   Critics of the Court object in two principal ways to self-restraint in judicial review, deferring as it does as a matter of doctrine to Acts of Congress and Presidential actions.
  
  BULLET::::1. Its inaction is said to allow "a flood of legislative appropriations" which permanently create an imbalance between the states and federal government.
  
  BULLET::::2. Supreme Court deference to Congress and the executive compromises American protection of civil rights, political minority groups and aliens.
  
  Section::::Judicial review.:Subsequent Courts.
   In the conclusion of his "Making of India's constitution", he writes:
  
  If the Indian constitution is our heritage bequeathed to us by our founding fathers, no less are we, the people of India, the trustees and custodians of the values which pulsate within its provisions! A constitution is not a parchment of paper, it is a way of life and has to be lived up to. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and in the final analysis, its only keepers are the people. Imbecility of men, history teaches us, always invites the impudence of power."
   The Constitution Society's has submitted evidence to the House of Commons Liaison Committee's inquiry into "Select Committee Powers and Effectiveness", the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution's inquiry into the "Process of Constitutional Change", and the Commission on a Bill of Rights for the UK.
   CAC has been cited as an influential purveyor of New Textualism, a school of thought focused on the text, structure, and enactment history of the language of the Constitution. The organization relies on legal arguments based in constitutional text and history, with particular emphasis on the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Inspired by Supreme Court textualists like Chief Justice John Marshall, Justice John Marshall Harlan, and Justice Hugo Black, founder and president Douglas Kendall has stated that this renewed focus on the Civil War Amendments can help to reveal the Constitution as a progressive document. A CAC publication about New Textualism states that “the Constitution provides concrete and progressive answers to many important questions.”
   Another defense of the Living Constitution is based in viewing the Constitution not merely as law, but as a source of foundational "concepts" for the governing of society. Of course, laws must be fixed and clear so that people can understand and abide by them on a daily basis. But if the Constitution is more than a set of laws, if it provides guiding concepts which themselves will in turn provide the foundations for laws, then the costs and benefits of such an entirely fixed meaning are very different. The reason for this is simple: if a society locks itself into a previous generation's interpretive ideas, it will wind up either constantly attempting to change the Constitution to reflect changes, or simply scrapping the Constitution altogether. While we remain bound by the rights and powers provided in the Constitution, thus, the scope those rights and powers should account for society's present experiences. "Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote in 1914: 'Provisions of the Constitution of the United States are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form, but are organic living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is not to be gathered simply from the words and a dictionary, but by considering their origin and the line of their growth.'"
   He went on to cite Prof. Etienne Mureinik in this regard: "If the new Constitution is a bridge away from a culture of authority, it is clear what it must be a bridge to. It must lead to a culture of justification—a culture in which every exercise of power is expected to be justified [...] If the Constitution is to be a bridge in this direction, it is plain that the Bill of Rights must be its chief strut."
  
  Section::::Public opinion.
   Section::::Criticisms.
  
  The United States Constitution has faced various criticisms since its inception in 1787.
   BULLET::::- If a constitution no longer meets the exigencies of a society's "evolving standard of decency", and the people wish to amend or replace the document, there is nothing stopping them from doing so in the manner which was envisioned by the drafters: through the amendment process. The Living Constitution approach would thus only be valuable in the absence of an amendment process.
   The basic theory of American Judicial review is summarized by constitutional legal scholars and historians as follows: the written Constitution is fundamental law. It can change only by extraordinary legislative process of national proposal, then state ratification. The powers of all departments are limited to enumerated grants found in the Constitution. Courts are expected (a) to enforce provisions of the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, and (b) to refuse to enforce anything in conflict with it.
   As a matter of government reform, the Defenders wanted better order in their administration. However, they also felt that the people themselves were not intelligent enough or in other words, not possessing the political consciousness or awareness to govern themselves; so it was their believe that the Defenders should teach or administer the people on how to govern themselves without their permission and against their own will.
  
  Section::::Politics.
   Collectively, members of the House and Senate typically propose around 200 amendments during each two-year term of Congress. Most however, never get out of the Congressional committees in which they were proposed, and only a fraction of those that do receive enough support to win Congressional approval to actually go through the constitutional ratification process.
   "I would also say that if you believe in something, if you think the Constitution is a good one, and if you think the Constitution protects you, you better make sure that the Constitution is actively operating... and uh, in other words "constant vigilance". Otherwise, it's a scrap of paper. We had the Constitution to protect us in 1942. It didn't because the will of the people weren't behind it."
   The idea of displaying the documents struck one academic critic looking from the point of view of the 1776 or 1789 America as "idolatrous, and also curiously at odds with the values of the Revolution". By 1816, Jefferson wrote that "[s]ome men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the Ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched". But he saw imperfections and imagined that there could potentially be others, believing as he did that "institutions must advance also".
   Few new constitutions are modeled along the lines of the U.S. one, according to a study by David Law of Washington University. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg views the United States Constitution as more of a relic of the 18th century rather than as a model for new constitutions, and she suggested in 2014 that a nation seeking a new constitution might find a better model by examining the Constitution of South Africa (1997), the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) and the European Convention on Human Rights (1950):
  
  Section::::See also.
   BULLET::::- Morris, Richard B. "The Forging of the Union, 1781–1789". 1987. 416 pp. political and economic survey of 1780s and writing of Constitution
  
  BULLET::::- Nevins, Allan. "The American States During and After the Revolution, 1775–1789". 1924 ()
  
  BULLET::::- Tasi, Robert L., "America's Forgotten Constitutions: Defiant Visions of Power and Community" (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).
  
presuppositions: The constitution is constantly attacked by people hired to protect it. An important document like the Constitution shouldn't be attacked by those protecting it.
corrections: The constitution is not constantly attacked by people hired to protect it. The Constitution can be interpreted in different ways depending on varying political views.
raw_presuppositions: The constitution is constantly attacked by people hired to protect it. An important document like the Constitution shouldn't be attacked by those protecting it.
raw_corrections: The constitution is not constantly attacked by people hired to protect it. The Constitution can be interpreted in different ways depending on varying political views.