Chamber Pots

The Founders of this country believed that sovereignty belonged to  white males. They set up a representative form of government that had four parts: a House of Representatives that was directly elected by white males. That was supposed to be the most sovereign branch, and it was given the power to originate money matters; a Senate that was indirectly elected and would serve as a guardian for the rich and the small states and a brake on the anticipated excesses of the directly elected House; an indirectly elected President, who would act as an office coordinator, and an appointed Supreme Court to decide issues when two states came into conflict.

Founders differed on which body should act as the final authority when it came to interpreting the Constitution.  Madison, if I remember correctly, thought that the Constitution should be interpreted by the House, because the House was directly elected. The House most closely mirrored American sovereignty. But the opposite occurred. The least representative body, an appointed bunch of lawyers, about as far from sovereignty as you can get--the Supreme Court--today decides what the Constitution means, and from their decisions there is no appeal. (I might be wrong, but as far as I know, the USA is the only country on earth that is this undemocratic.)

To this mess you can add the notion that the  Constitution is a sacred document deserving of worship with the preaching done by nine appointees. I doubt if worship is what the Founders intended. Remember that they were revolutionaries. They invented a new kind of country. Their Constitution reflected the compromises needed at the time. I doubt if the Founders wanted the Constitution to last fifty years. Instead they expected that their descendants would come up with new ideas as times changed, new Constitutions, new revolutions, new kinds of countries. What they did not expect was that we would become a nation of timid ancestor worshippers, so frightened of change that we keep attempting to freeze culture in place. Some of us are "originalists," but nearly all of us try to argue political decisions in terms of a document as outmoded as a collection of chamber pots.