I think it is funny when people argue that the Constitution is some perfect magical document and the founders knew everything. There is no doubt that the founders were brilliant people, but they were brilliant imperfect people. They decided that white male landowners were the only people who should vote (basically viewing women and the poor as less than a person). They also allowed slavery to continue and lets not even get into what they did to the Native Americans. We have continually tweaked the Constitution, by abolishing slavery, allowing women and non landowners to vote, civil rights, and even messed around with alcohol. There was chaning how we elect Senators and placing term limits on the Presidency.
Basically what I am saying is that they don't hate the Constitution but they view it as an imperfect but great document that still needs work to bring it up to the 21st Century not the 18th Century.
=Amendments to the Constitution=
"Whatever be the Constitution, great care must be taken to provide
a mode of amendment when experience or change of circumstances
shall have manifested that any part of it is unadapted to the good
of the nation." --Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823.
"Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is
defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us
then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the
Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still
wanting." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803.
"We have always a right to correct ancient errors, and to establish
what is more conformable to reason and convenience." -- Thomas
Jefferson to James Madison, 1801.
"I willingly acquiesce in the institutions of my country, perfect
or imperfect; and think it a duty to leave their modifications to
those who are to live under them, and are to participate of the
good or evil they may produce. The present generation has the
same right of self-government which the past one has exercised
for itself." --Thomas Jefferson to John Hampden Pleasants, 1824.
"The precept is wise which directs us to try all things, and hold
fast that which is good." --Thomas Jefferson to William Drayton, 1788.
"Let us go on perfecting the Constitution by adding, by way of
amendment, those forms which time and trial show are still
wanting." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803.
"The real friends of the Constitution in its federal form, if they
wish it to be immortal, should be attentive, by amendments, to
make it keep pace with the advance of the age in science and
experience. Instead of this, the European governments have
resisted reformation, until the people, seeing no other resource,
undertake it themselves by force, their only weapon, and work it
out through blood, desolation and long-continued anarchy."
--Thomas Jefferson to Robert J. Garnett, 1824.
"Our children will be as wise as we are and will establish in the
fulness of time those things not yet ripe for establishment."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1810.
"Can one generation bind another and all others in succession
forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the
living, not for the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to
persons, not to things, not to mere matter unendowed with will."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.
"I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes
in laws and constitutions, I think moderate imperfections had
better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate
ourselves to them and find practical means of correcting their
ill effects. But I know, also, that laws and institutions must
go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that
becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are
made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with
the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and
keep pace with the times." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval,
1816.
"We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which
fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under
the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." --Thomas Jefferson to
Samuel Kercheval, 1816.
"It is more honorable to repair a wrong than to persist in it."
--Thomas Jefferson: Address to Cherokee Nation, 1806.
"Happily for us, that when we find our constitutions defective
and insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we can
assemble with all the coolness of philosophers, and set them to
rights, while every other nation on earth must have recourse to
arms to amend or to restore their constitutions." --Thomas
Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, 1787.