History offers terrible warning for committee drafting the charter

Three or four days ago I submitted a letter on the size of the committee to draft the Thai constitution. In it, I made an error, which has since been brought to my attention. I suggested that Thomas Jefferson wrote the US constitution and that it was refined by a small number of top lawmakers. I was wrong. He actually penned the Declaration of Independence. The constitution was drafted by a large number of representatives from all of the fledgling states. This would seem to undermine my assertion that the large size of the committee tasked with drafting the Thai constitution will cause many “compromises”, resulting in an unreliable document.

However, I have always wondered why slavery was not banned by the constitution of the United States, since it is a well-written document. While researching I learned the answer. It was necessary for the North’s representatives to reach a “compromise” with the South during the drafting by allowing slavery to be a state-by-state issue. This compromise led to the conflagration known as the Civil War less than 100 years later. I must apologise for my original blunder, but I guess I will have to stick with my basic belief that anything designed by a committee is unreliable.

John Arnone