The Town Hall meeting has long been a hallowed symbol of American democracy, as embodied in the famous Norman Rockwell painting, "Freedom of Speech" that shows a man, surrounded by his neighbors, rising to speak his mind. It is an image and idea that states forthrightly that government belongs to the people, and that it is governed by the people, not simply in some abstract national vote, but at the local level. That is why the Town Hall is a far more sacred and enduring definition of American democracy than the White House, the Capitol Building, and even perhaps the Constitution, because it defines the American system of government as based on public participation from the bottom up.
