By Kasey Ricketts, student news writer

CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. — The United States Constitution is one of the shortest documents, and that is why Dr. Paul E. Salamanca, Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky, believes it works so well.

Salamanca spoke at Campbellsville University's Kentucky Heartland Institute on Public Policy (KHIPP) “Constitution Day” Sept. 17 in the Banquet Hall of the Badgett Academic Support Center.

Salamanca believes the Constitution is a textual work that makes it so powerful.

Those in attendance included Dr. Frank Cheatham (left), senior vice president for academic affairs at CU, and Amy Anderson, Taylor County district judge (right). (Campbellsville University Photo by Rachel DeCoursey)

“Americans like to be able to read things. They have the mindset of, ‘I can read, let me read it, now I understand,'”

Salamanca said to about 50 faculty, staff, students and community people at the session.

Many of today's political topics came up doing the discussion with the audience such as: Obama Care, Syria, gay rights and general welfare.

A student questioned how the president is supposed to please the people but also hold up the Constitution. Salamanca said, “The president took an oath to uphold the Constitution. He is there to annoy the people. But a good president will find a way to do both. At the end of the day, his duty is to do his job though.”

When asked by a student in the audience if Salamanca thought the United States should take a clean piece of paper and rewrite the whole Constitution and if that is done would it change a lot. Salamanca said he believed the Constitution “would be very close to the same as it is now. We'd get it right again.”

When asked about the possibility of including any new amendments, Salamanca, who was law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Judge David Souter, said he did not think any would be added.

Salamanca said, “We, as a political culture, have certain habits in the way we constitute ourselves, habits that we can

The CU Student Government Association started the 2013    Constitution Day with students signing a blown up version of  the Constitution of the United States. They were then given a  smaller version to take home. (Campbellsville University  Photo by Ye Wei “Vicky”)

cultivate and attend to, or habits that we can let fall into atrophy.”

The CU Student Government Association celebrated Constitution Day by having students go by the E. Bruce Heilman Student Complex and sign a “Constitution.”

Campbellsville University is a widely acclaimed Kentucky-based Christian university with more than 3,500 students offering 63 undergraduate options, 17 master's degrees, five postgraduate areas and eight pre-professional programs. The website for complete information is campbellsville.edu.