Experts, scholars, and professionals dissect Constitutional conservatism into several more specific interpretive methodologies using terms like original intent, original meaning, plain meaning, strict construction, and formalism. While such distinctions are useful on a second, third, or fourth study, or in the course of a scholarly examination, they are largely ignored here because they aren't necessary to a basic familiarization with the text.

Logic insists that the Constitution was written to be understood as a self-contained document by ordinary citizens leading industrious private lives. We don't have to read the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, the Articles of Confederation, the Magna Carta, or the Holy Bible. We don't have to know the hearts and minds of the signatories or their constituents. We don't have to know which words are the result of compromise or who among the Founders were federalists or anti-federalists. While the study of such contextual elements results in deeper insight (and they will be mentioned from time to time), the focus here is to encourage and share the experience of a simple textual reading which can be the entirety or the beginning of an acquaintance with our Constitution.

Tomorrow: The Preamble.