Constitution 1, Progressives 0

Just in time for Constitution Day, the Constitutional Accountability Center opened a new website for "constitutional progressives."  Front and center is the  "Whole Constitution Pledge" which pledges signers to the following:

Through the Constitution, “We the People” created the most enduring government charter in world history.

Building on the achievements of the Founding generation, successive generations of Americans have created a “more perfect union” through constitutional Amendments. These Amendments have improved our Constitution by ending slavery, enshrining guarantees of equality and citizenship, expanding the right to vote, and ensuring that the national government has the power and resources necessary to protect the nation, address national challenges and secure civil rights.

Some have advocated repeal of Amendments, including the 14th Amendment, the 16th Amendment, and the 17th Amendment, that make our Constitution better and this country great. Some have even failed to heed the lessons of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement and have advocated a return to ideas of secession and nullification.

I believe that our Constitution has been improved by the Amendments adopted over the last 220 years.

I pledge to support the whole Constitution.

I guess supporting the whole Constitution is in contrast to the (insert your own adjective here) Tea Partiers who support the repeal of the 14th, 16th, and 17th Amendments.  But wait!  The Constitution has an amendment process in Article V, so supporting the repeal of an amendment with an additional amendment is, in effect, supporting the whole Constitution.  One can support the Constitution and support repeal of a specific amendment without being contradictory.

Let's look and see if Progressives believe in the Constitution.

Here is Woodrow Wilson professing his faith in support of the statesmanship and genius of the Founder's Constitution:

The charm of our constitutional ideal has now been long enough wound up to enable sober men who do not believe in political witchcraft to judge what it has accomplished, and is likely still to accomplish, without further winding.  The Constitution is not honored by blind worship.

And again:

The trouble with the [Founder's] theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. No living thing can have its organs offset against each other as checks, and live. 

Oh, wait a minute...nevermind.