I'm Jerry Goldman, the principal author of Chapter 3, "The Constitution." Let me offer a little advice, having taught this topic for more than 30 years. This is one of the longer chapters in The Challenge of Democracy. Consider digesting it in two or more pieces. I imagine two keys to this chapter: understanding the historical context for the creation of the U.S. Constitution; and, forging government institutions wary of raw democracy and of unlimited power.

You have probably been confronting bits and pieces of the U.S. Constitution since grade school. The same issues that motivated Americans to create a constitution now motivate Europeans, who today face issues quite similar to those that confronted Americans 230 years ago. These issues are timeless. How do you balance the interests of each constituent colony or state with the interests of the collective enterprise? How do you balance freedom versus order and freedom versus equality?

The Constitution grew from the colonial experience and its first effort was a failure. Efforts at compromise with King George III and Parliament proved unworkable. The colonists opted for independence, putting their lives and honor on the line. However, once they removed the yoke of British rule, these new Americans could not govern themselves as a group. The first attempt at governance was the Articles of Confederation. It proved a failure. The early American governing model was actually quite similar to the current European Union: both imposed a unanimity rule for change of the governing charter. So to overcome such limits, American leaders at first planned to amend the basic charter. At least, that was their charge. But the task quickly became a total rewriting of the document. The Americans conducted their revisions in secret whereas the Europeans publicly debated their plans for governance.

The Constitution thus became the second charter of American government. It embodied many critical compromises with the critical goal of assuring sufficient power to the national government to overcome the lack of power under the Articles. The draft constitution was imperfect in several ways. One agreed solution was the addition of a Bill of Rights to constrain the national government from overreaching conduct. There was no special fear of the state government; it was closer to the people. This addition served as a guarantee against the tyranny of a more powerful national government.

The Constitution is not perfect. It failed to resolve the issue of slavery, for example. That would require a Civil War. But the Constitution did enable the national government to govern. The Constitution put ample roadblocks in the way of governing(two legislative houses; separation of powers; checks on each branch; limited national power). However, necessity (such as war or economic crisis or threat of terrorism) and pragmatism (such as how to resolve conflicts between a law and a Constitution) prompted solutions that were probably not part of the Founders' design, certainly not in any explicit way.

Today, the quest for a viable European Constitution remains in limbo. How much power should be vested in the central government? How much power should remain in the constituent states? Americans answered these difficult questions with the creation of a federal system. Europeans are still searching for solutions.