Writing the Constitution

The following are some questions that the Founding Fathers of America dealt with when establishing their new nation. In thinking about such questions, I wonder what factors allowed them to identify such questions, and what sources gave them the insight to answer them.

-What is the fundamental assumption behind the Constitution?  

Their answer to that might have been something like this: “We need a gov't, or that a gov't is essential.”
-What does an ideal gov't do?

In my own words, I would say, “Encourages moral behavior through permitting liberty.” The answer that the Founders derived was a bit broader than mine, but it did include what I said.
 

One of the sources of inspiration for how to model their new government was to look at the past governments of the world and try to learn from their mistakes and success. They did this by comparing idealistic principles to real situations--this leads Founders to consider various solutions. The result is the Constitution.
The Constitution was a response to the recognition of the Human Predicament, which is outlined in the following flow diagram:

 
tyranny=>revolution=>anarchy=>competing groups=>back to tyranny, etc...

This predicament had been addressed in at least four way in the past, all of which tried in different ways to balance the issues of Government, Freedom, Human Nature. Those four options were, Autocracy, Classical, Libertarianism, and Liberalism. The fundamental assumptions behind each of these modes of political thought are as follows:
Autocracy- people are like children and they need teaching. Strong gov’t.
Classical- idea that man could be corrupted, and so gov’t was intended to instruct people so they could govern themselves. This also applied to gov’ts—they too could be corrupted.
Libertarianism- idea that humans are essentially good, not just clean slate, but good, and minimal gov’t is best. “Best gov’t is the gov’t that governs least”
Liberalism- people are basically good but gov’t can be used to improve society even more. Gov’t is a tool of releasing human potential.

All of the Founders saw each of these options and considered them. They were not black and white about which was good and which was bad, but they agreed that not any one answered all the questions on its own.  The Founders decided to build a government that took ideas from all of the modes of thought above. They also instituted checks and balances so that the various powers would not win out over each other. This is the original genius of the US Constitution. The Founders then set bounds by laws, courts, and police.

Also, the Founding Fathers did not see a difference between politics and economics. Therefore, the same variation that we see in the political sphere, we see in the economic. Within the economic sphere, there is a system of checks and balances in place. Out economy is not strictly a market economy, nor a socialist, neither is laissez faire nor communism the modus operandi.

Organizing the Constitution was a mighty work, because it had to incorporate many things, such as: structure, participation, law, custom and tradition, moral sense, and leadership. Also, it needed to find a way to insure that laws be implied impartially, and this is one of the great steps forward of the Constitution, though it is reminiscent of  the Rule of Law—no one is above the law, which was part of the English political canon.

Conclusion
The Founding Fathers wanted to tackle the problem of gov’t once and for all. This necessitated an inherent ability within the gov’t to change and adapt. This required that individuals did not make changes, and that they were deliberate, that a mad or self-interested man did not drive them.