ABSTRACT
There is an obvious appeal to the traditional Enlightenment solution to the puzzle of American constitutionalism's liaison with Newtonian mechanics. Such an interpretation is clear and clean. From this viewpoint, the formulation of the constitution can be made to appear as an exercise in reasoned enquiry and as a practical example of the utility of marshalled experience in arriving at the structural requirements necessary for an effective constitution. The Founding Fathers' claim to rationality was supported by the assumption that they intuitively reflected their era's adherence to Newtonian philosophy and, consequently, infused the constitution with mechanical principles of which the most important was that of balance. The concept of balance in the constitution, therefore, became attributed either directly or indirectly to the compulsive attraction of Newton's perspective of nature as an intrinsic harmony of maintained balances. Constitutional balance became not only a symbol but a physical manifestation of nature. Nevertheless, the main problem concerning such an interpretation is that it has been denounced in many quarters as wholly inaccurate and fundamentally untrue. The challenge comes from four main sources. Three of these are objections based upon historical grounds. The fourth is an empirical challenge to the existence of the constitution's mechanistic properties.
