Let’s start with the preamble:

“We the People  of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

To me, the preamble is the shining example of Lincoln’s phrase “of the poeple, by the poeple, for the people.”

The founding fathers, representing the whole population of the colonies, felt to need to establish a “more perfect” union.  The fact that they had just fought a war against an ages-old oppressor and won led to the fact that there was, indeed, a union already in place, albeit technically a confederation a colonies.

The purpose of this union is clear and specific: to provide for fair and swift justice, keep all citizens safe from enemies foreign and domestic, take care of country as a whole, and secure the trapping of liberty.  In recent days, some have misconstrued this phrase to mean that majority must suffer to take care of the few.  In my opinion, it’s quite the opposite…the minority must sacrifice for the good of the whole.  Promoting general welfare (the good of the country) is something far different from promoting individual welfare.

The purpose is to provide a grounding, a floor, a stable support for any and every individual to secure justice, safety, and liberty.  Nothing less, nothing more.