Today is Constitution Day, the 225th anniversary of the Philadelphia Convention's signing of the draft Constitution. The Constitution was then sent to the people of the states for ratification. (It is an interesting question whether the signing date should be the one that is celebrated as opposed to the day the 9th state ratified the Constitution, which was the event necessary to enact it.)
One way to celebrate the day is to visit the Heritage Guide to the Constitution online, which contains articles on the original meaning and later interpretation of all of the Constitution's clauses. (I wrote the article on the Presentment Clause.)
This site is the online version of the Heritage Center's Print Edition of the Guide. Heritage is now at work on the second edition of the Guide, and I have the privilege of serving on the Editorial Board. The next edition should be quite excellent.
MIKE RAMSEY adds: As to Mike's first point, in my view quite obviously Constitution Day should be the date of the 9th ratification (which would be June 21). As the drafters recognized, the Constitution was nothing but a proposal when it emerged from the Convention.
As to the Heritage Guide, I agree that it's a great overview of the original and modern debates. My contribution is the entry on treatymaking power (Article II, Section 2, para. 2, cl. 1). As I've noted before, this constitutional provision is a challenge for originalists because in modern practice so many of the U.S.'s international agreements are made without the advice and consent of two-thirds of Senators present, as required by the treatymaking clause. (I don't purport to resolve the challenge in the Heritage Guide entry, but I hope to have an effort in that direction in print at some point).
Posted at 5:43 PM