To quote Justice Thurgood Marshall:
""I do not believe the meaning of the Constitution was forever "fixed"
at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight,
and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound.
To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the
start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social
transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and
its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as
fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite "The
Constitution,” they invoke a concept that is vastly different from
what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.
further than the first three words of the document's preamble: “We the
People.” When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did
not have in mind the majority of America's citizens. "We the People"
included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free
Persons." On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example,
Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for
representational purposes at three-fifths each. Women did not gain the
right to vote for over 130 years. These omissions were intentional.