this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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Thomas Jefferson argued that the Constitution should be rewritten every 19 years.
According to the math he laid out in that document, it would be a longer period today to account for the increased life expectancy. At the time, it was only assumed that the average life expectancy was 55 years. Google says it is now about 78, so the suggestion for today's world would be to rewrite the Constitution every 31 years or so.
It makes sense. His logic is essentially that the Constitution is a contract that binds everyone in our society to a legal framework, but the rules were created for a specific time and people and binding future generations to the same rules would be the same as having a dead man continue to own all the property he aqcuired in life instead of having the ownership pass down to his descendants.
Weren't a number of the signers older than 55?
Life expectancy is an average
Average lifespan was also seriously dragged down by child and infant mortality rates. Most historians and historical medical researchers agree that if you made it past 5 or so, you stood a decent chance of reaching your mid 70s.
Some people did some research and determined that if a male Roman citizen survived to 25, after childhood illnesses, youthful recklessness, and serving in the army, their life expectancy was about the same as ours.