“Unlocking Humanity: The Surprising Secret Behind What Makes Us Truly Human”
The OG Constitution
This all brings us to the topic of today, the oldest still functioning codified constitution, which not only was the culmination of all the ideas humans have come up with over the last several thousand years on government, but also just so happened to massively influence a more well known Constitution that would be drafted only a few years later in the United States’ Constitution, which also has withstood the test of time to date, and for a while was one of the most influential Constitutions in the world, only relatively recently being usurped there as we’ll get into later. And while the author of this former constitution rarely gets any credit whatsoever when speaking of those who drafted the U.S. Constitution, in fact, he was arguably one of the chief architects of the U.S. Constitution despite not directly being involved at all, in fascinating, mostly forgotten, ways.
So what was this earlier constitution that is the oldest still functioning today, who was the man, and what were his ideas that have proven so extremely effective and resilient since?
First, as a point of clarity on what constitutes the oldest still functioning constitution, there are elements of uncodified or partially unwritten constitutions much older that still function today, with the most prominent example being with the UK where there is no real single defining constitution, but rather a system that has developed over time which is continually evolving by rulings of the courts and acts of parliament. Some elements from that system are older than what is generally considered “The world’s oldest still functioning constitution,” but the whole is not. Thus why it’s generally not given the top spot.
