The U.S. Constitution: Does it stand the test of time?

A LIVING CONSTITUTION The U.S. Constitution: Does it stand the test of time? In 1835, less than half a century after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Alexis de TocqueviUe observed in his famous book, Democracy in America, "...The social state of America is a very strange phenomenon. Men there are nearer equality in wealth and mental endowments ... than in any other country of the world or in any other age or recorded history."1 …

…th ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2000. Moran, Margaret, and W. Frances Holder. AP Success: U.S. History. Lawrenceville, NJ: Peterson's, 2000. Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Translated by George Lawrence. Edited by J. P. Mayer. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1969. Veit, Helen E., Kenneth R. Bowling, and Charlene Bangs Bickford, eds. Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the First Federal Congress. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1991.