Does the Constitution impose any obligations upon its citizens? Take, for example, the right to vote. The Constitution sets out that a President shall be elected every four years and shall be a natural born citizen of at least thirty–five years of age. (Article II, §§ 1, 5). But it does not impose upon its citizens a requirement that they do in fact exercise their right to vote. Does the Constitution simply assume this right will be effectively carried out?
As well, the First Amendment guarantees the rights of freedom of speech, assembly, and religion, but there’s no corresponding requirement that its citizens are duty bound to exercise these rights in any meaningful way. Does the Constitution simply assume these rights will be fully and meaningfully utilized?
The Constitution has in fact many obligations which it imposes upon its citizens, but these are implicit and simply assumed that its people will voluntarily and willingly carry out. In fact, it can be argued that free societies such as the United States assume greater, not lesser, obligations for its citizens than societies without freedom.
Why should this be so? Perhaps the first reason is to recognize that a free society presupposes personal responsibility for one’s acts and behavior beyond that which can be dictated and described by the government. As well, a free nation requires that the rights of others will be considered before the carrying out of any act. Planning ahead, vigilance, foresight—these are recognized as requisite, not discretionary. But they are not set out textually.
This textual absence creates a vacuum which citizenship fills to the brim. One would think that our various duties and responsibilities would be set forth in exact detail so that all would know what’s to be expected of them. But our Constitution stops short—and for good reason. There’s no constitutional requirement to exercise one’s rights since the decision to do so is entirely one’s own—not the government’s. When a protected right is compelled it ceases to be a right at all.
This experiment in reigning in the power of government does create an element of risk and uncertainty. The simple but utterly harmful and coercive solution is to dictate terms—and many countries do just that. It took real insight to create a document that limited the decision-making power of government. But our founders had the wisdom to know that’s a basic starting point for a free society—a willingness to place ultimate trust in the hands of others.
