best i could do at the moment. definition is simple, but complicated by courts...as usual.
jerrymac, i have through about our conversation and i am not trying to blow you off. maybe we just went on to many side trips. i'll try to give you the stripped down version of what i believe. :-)
'the constitution was written as a simple document. it give some basic rights, and limits the federal government. the founders envisioned a federal government that would have limited powers and little impact on the day to day lives of citizens. over the years, the courts have interpreted, reinterpreted, and mis-interpreted the constitution to give more power to the federal government and less to the states. in addition, the states have become money bleep and voluntarily given up more power to the feds.
historically, the more power is centralized, the less people are free. power needs power to stay in power. the founders knew this and hoped to avoid mistakes of the past. TJ wrote about the powers of the court and how if anything were to destroy the republic, it would be the courts. legislation can be a problem, but laws are easy to overturn when found to be wrong....until they have gone through the federal courts. once they have done that, or god forbid, made it through the supreme court, they get chiseled in stone and are next to impossible to overturn.
the provision for a constitutional convention was put in there so that when a real change needed to be made the people and the states had to think about what they were doing. those times that the constitution has been amended required effort and debate before coming to a decision that most could agree on. when the courts take it on themselves to make these changes, that debate and power are taken from the people and from the states. their decisions may not be written into the constitution, but the effect is the same.
everyone points to the 1st and 2nd amendments as the most important, and maybe they are, but the 10th belongs with them. our right to be free of an oppressive centralized government depends on it.