Happy Constitution Day!

Two hundred eighteen years ago today, on September 17, 1787, a small group of Americans emerged from almost four months of closeted deliberations to present to the world a document the likes of which had never been seen before: the United States Constitution. That document, with its amendments, is honored today in an official "day of reflection."

Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), a stalwart proponent of constitutional education for Americans, pushed the recent expansion of Constitution Day, going so far as to include a provision in last year's omnibus appropriations bill that mandates the observance of the day in all federally-funded schools, universities and government offices (mandates of course being a pretty symbolic word in this case, since there are no plans to enforce that requirement - most institutions are willingly participating in the event. I would also note parenthetically that Byrd's use of a legislative rider in an appropriations bill is something I disapprove of on budgetary grounds).

Said Byrd back in July, "Our personal liberties, our legal system, and our entire form of government, all depend on our knowledge of, and adherence to, the text of the Constitution of the United States. It seems obvious that a great Republic cannot sustain itself unless its citizens participate in their own government. But how can they participate meaningfully if they don't know the fundamental principles on which their government is founded?" He's right.

An editorial in the Brattleboro Reformer (VT) today notes that Americans' ignorance of constitutional principles "is palpable in American life. Recent polls show about one-quarter of Americans can't name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment and about one-third of Americans don't know the number of branches in the federal government.

And that ignorance allows the federal government to erode our rights with laws such as the
grossly misnamed Patriot Act. If people don't know about the right to freedom of speech, or the right to be from unreasonable search and seizure, or the right to a speedy trial where one can confront their accusers, it's that much easier to take those rights away.

Civics classes have all but disappeared in American schools, as emphasis is now placed on standardized tests and teaching to those tests. But if we are to maintain a healthy democracy, more Americans need to know what's in the Constitution and why voting and serving on juries is more important than waving flags and putting ribbon magnets on the backs of SUVs. More Americans need to know that the passion for ideas and the free exchange of ideas is an important part of citizenship. More Americans need to know that the spirit of liberty, as Judge Learned Hand said in 1944, is 'the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all.'"

I took some time this morning and re-read the text of our Constitution, something I don't do as often as I should. It really is an amazing document, and its staying power says that better than any words ever could. I don't know what impact one "Constitution Day" a year will have on America's schoolchildren, but I do know that one is better than none.

The two best quotes for Constitution Day, with which I'll end this ramble, come from Benjamin Franklin. The first is recorded in James Madison's Notes on the Federal Convention for Monday, September 17, 1787: "... Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution], Doct'r Franklin looking toward the Presidents chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have said he, often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicisitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun."

The second story occurred just a few minutes later, and while it may be apocryphal it's a good one nonetheless. When the Framers emerged from Independence Hall with the finished (and newly-signed) document, a woman shouted to Benjamin Franklin "Well Doctor, what have we got? A republic, or a monarchy?" Franklin, crippled by gout but still going strong, replied without skipping a beat "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

We've kept it. And if those of us who cherish and respect its principles have our way, that sun can never fail to rise.