Certainly we are a nation governed by a written constitution, and the text of that Constitution is the explicit supreme law of the land. To say that there is some "spirit" to the document that can override the clear language of the actual piece of brittle parchment sitting in the National Archives is, just as saying that some kind of original intent overrides the clear language is, to reject written constitutionality. At that point, we would be like Britain, possessing some foundational documents but no one plenary governing text. This is, I think it is safe to say, not how our government works.
But I do think that the explicit text of the Constitution invites and even requires some consideration of what can reasonable be called the document's spirit. It does this by being vague. Very, very, vague. There are three major places in the Constitution where truly massive and momentous vagueness resides: first, in the Necessary and Proper Clause; second, in the Ninth Amendment's guarantee of unenumerated rights; and third, in the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on Cruel and Unusual Punishment. The first two hint at potentially expansive powers for the government or rights for the people that are not listed explicitly (but are nonetheless contained in the strict constitutional text, mind you), while the third entails a considerable restriction on the means by which the government can constrain and control its populace; all of these are important matters. And they are all very, very vague. What makes a power necessary? Or, even worse, proper? If we assume that the Founders had some list of powers that were necessary and proper in mind, even if they couldn't have written it down in a list per se, how in the world are we to figure out what those powers were? Likewise, what punishments are cruel and unusual? Is there a list, lurking behind the 8th Amendment, of specific punishments that are cruel and unusual? If so, how do we figure them out? And if the 9th Amendment says that the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people, how the hell are we supposed to know which unenumerated rights are protected?
The answer is, of course, that this is the wrong way to go about it. If the Founders did have an implicit list in mind, or if there was supposed to be a List lurking behind these three vague phrases, this fact is of no use today, since we do not have this list and cannot reasonably reconstruct it. And in any event, if what the 9th Amendment means is that, well, here we only listed some of the rights we currently consider important, and there are others and it is those that we protect here, why not just write down some of those others? No, these three phrases make the most sense if what they are is a delegation of discretion by the Founding generation to their progeny. The government may use all means necessary and proper to the execution of its powers. If there are other rights that they left out, that they were not cognizant of but that deserve protection anyway, they are protected. If a practice comes to be seen as cruel and unusual, it is banned. There were plenty of specific prohibitions or protections in the Constitution; adding vague powers, restrictions, and rights makes sense only if they are supposed to operate differently. (Note, the Eighth Amendment is considerably less architectonic in its importance, so it will be dropped from my analysis from here on out.)
So what is this "spirit of the constitution" that I say should enter the field of interpretation through these vaguenesses? Is it simply the opinion of five life-tenured judges? Is it whatever the people want, the zeitgeist? No, it is none of these things. The spirit of the Constitution comes from two places. The first of these is the preamble to the Constitution, which sets forth the goals of the document: forming a more perfect union, establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the common welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty. These goals, I think, are a reasonable guide in particular to what is necessary and proper, in that an action that does not advance one of these goals might very well not be "proper."
The other thing is the Declaration of Independence, which sets forth the governing political philosophy of our nation. And yes, the Declaration is an important document for the American government. We consider this country to have begun on July 4th, 1776, a date that is important only because of the Declaration. The Articles of Confederation were not officially ratified until March 1st, 1781. For the intervening five years, on what authority did this nation exist? That of the Declaration of Independence, of course. It is, therefore, our nation's most foundational document, and the Constitution itself rests solely upon the authority of the Declaration of Independence.
As I said, the spirit of the Constitution enters through the text of the Constitution, and there is one particular part of the Constitution that invites a look at the Declaration: the Ninth Amendment. The unenumerated rights which the Ninth Amendment states are not denied or disparaged by the enumerated rights are rights retained by the people. Some claim that this is just a statement of the principle of limited government, a truism like the Tenth Amendment. But retained suggests that they were rights previously held, doesn't it? And what rights might American citizens have held prior to the Constitution? I think it makes no sense to look to the Articles of Confederation, since the Constitution did not recognize the Articles as legitimate (requiring a three-fourths majority of states for ratification, rather than unanimity as the Articles commanded). So if the Articles are not binding, there can only have been one governing document that might tell us what rights American had prior to 1787. That document is the Declaration of Independence, and how fortuitous! It contains a section on what rights the American colonialists considered themselves to possess:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.The foundational document of the American republic states in no uncertain terms that all governments are instituted for the purpose of securing certain inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are the rights that Americans have under the Declaration, they are the rights Americans had prior to the Constitution, and they must be, then, the unenumerated rights retained by the people in the Ninth Amendment.
That is the spirit of the Constitution: the government it creates must be a government that will protect the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed, with certain specific goals described in the Preamble. And when the plain text of the Constitution or rigorous structural analysis thereof cannot settle a matter, particularly with regards to the Necessary and Proper Clause or the Ninth Amendment, the Spirit of the Constitution can usefully and validly inform our judgments.
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