Constitution Celebration Far Better Than Most

Friday 17 September 2010 is the USA Constitution's 223^rd anniversary. That's not a very round number, like a bicentennial, yet this year everybody seems to know the importance of the date. There are even Constitution Parties. In prior years, it was the odd individual who even remembered. As retired military, it gladdens me to see so much interest in the U.S. Constitution. It's the document I swore an oath to uphold & defend, so solemnly that it ended with the words from George Washington's own oath of office precedent: "So Help Me, God".

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To help satisfy my fellow citizens' interest, I humbly submit a little historical context. May it help the parties be as politically aware as the movements that generated them. May it help kindle the rising flame of Constitutional knowledge. Below is a reflection on how we got to this wonderful Constitution Day, followed by a review of the history of Constitution Day itself, and then a look at the flow of significant events in getting the Constitution from document to the supreme law of a land ruled by Constitutional Rule of Law. The final text section outlines several significant effects that the U.S. Constitution has had. At bottom is a list of references with which to start further investigation.

Reflections on Recent History

What a difference a few years makes! At the USA's bicentennial celebrations, one could easily find copies of the Constitution, Declaration, and other founding documents. They were published by government sources and private companies, all in seemingly endless quantities. Some renditions were on actual parchment. Some were on paper made to look like the original documents. Many more still, were in regular type and booklet formats -- much easier to read and comprehend, even if removed a bit from the 'look' of historical significance. It seemed everybody had copies on walls and in their hands. Probably at least a few citizens read them. But those few years of rediscovering the nation's roots didn't last. It was, like a bright moment with a misfiring Revolutionary War weapon, a 'flash in the pan'. By the 1990s, knowledge of the constitution was marginalized. It disappeared from most public school curriculum, apparently to make room for diversity studies and environmental studies and other 'new civics' lessons. It got so bad that Hillary Clinton derided the Constitution with the nervy assessment that having one's own copy of the Constitution was a mark of being a radical right wing extremist. And, indeed, two decades after the bicentennial, popular knowledge backed up the extremely outspoken First Lady. Publicity in national news indicated that only separatists and neo-NAZIs had ever read or bought a copy. The news was careful to show these situations as small groups of separatists who preached that the Constitution was without amendments and subordinate laws. But more generally, with a little discernment, one could notice other people too, who mentioned the Constitution, were misrepresenting it. But these others were misrepresenting in the other direction; America's socialists were wanting a Living Constitution with which to expand government and their own elitist power. This socialist movement is now full-force before our eyes, as reflected by this year's resurging popular Constitutional awareness. This year is surprisingly ringing with Constitutional awareness. Even a couple years ago, few of our fellow citizens actually gazed on the Constitution's words. Yet, this year, we have Constitution Parties, we have instructional webinars, and we see massive grass-roots movements (like the Tea Party) that are challenging misrepresenters to prove their assertions are actually in the document. Many of us have again read the Constitution and other Founding Fathers' documents, and just don't see the claimed Living Constitution. But it's vital to remember, if the litany below becomes too 'factual': behind the brief bullets & phrases, were real men in a really hot sealed room, day after day, hammering out their wildly divergent world views into a unifying governmental structure. And, with his wise hand at the helm, George Washington himself chaired the often heated discussions, day after day, advocating little on any particular policy, but waging an indefatigable 'top cover' for the larger purpose of getting the divergent representatives to keep working things out.

Evolution of Constitution Day: 17 September

• Like most traditions & holidays, official proclamation came considerably after popular tradition was well established.
• Congress, under George Washington as President of the Congress, signs the Constitution, and sends it to the states for ratification debates.
• Congress, on 13 September 1788, certifies that at least nine states have ratified the Constitution, placing the Constitution into effect for the new nation.
• Americans have unofficially observed Constitution Day, on 17 September, pretty much since 1788. The huge celebrations in 1788, like in Philadelphia, were sponsored by individual city & town governments, and a few state governments. Probably no celebrations have been as big as that first one, right after the 11^th state had ratified the Constitution
• 3 May 1940: Congressional Joint Resolution authorized President to annually proclaim 3^rd Sunday in May as "I Am An American Day", urging recognition of all who had attained American citizenship.
• 29 Feb 1952: Congressional Joint Resolution moving 3^rd Sunday of May to 17 September, and renaming it Citizenship Day, and encouraging local jurisdictions to instruct citizens of their freedoms & corresponding responsibilities
• 19 Aug 1955: President Eisenhower proclaims 1^st-ever Constitution Week for the week including 17 September
• 8 Dec 2004: Congress, in an Appropriations Act (budgetary bill), changed the name to Constitution Day & Citizenship Day.

Out of Confederation Weakness: Adopting the Constitution.

• 17 Sep 1787: Congress signed the Constitution, under the signature of Convention President (& Virginia Delegate) George Washington; Congress then made copies and presented the Constitution to the states' legislatures & conventions for debate and hoped-for adoption by at least 9 states.
• The Founding Fathers considered three states absolutely key, politically, as these "large" states contained significant populations: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. They were "large" in population, not necessarily in size.
• There was another nerve-wracking calculation, too. Geography identified 'potentially dividing' middle states as New York and (again, on this list) Virginia. If they didn't ratify the Constitution, the fledgling country would be geographically fragmented. Other central states were comparatively small in size or population, or both, and could be expected to side with the majority of other states.
• Dec 1787 -- Feb 1788: the 1^st pulse of ratifications started not quite 3 months after Signing.

6 states ratify the Constitution in rapid succession in a span of two months.

• Delaware, 7 Dec 1787;
• Pennsylvania, 12 Dec 1787;
• New Jersey, 18 Dec 1787;
• Georgia, 2 Jan 1788;
• Connecticut, 9 Jan 1788;
• Massachusetts, 6 Feb 1788.

In times when 'roads' were seldom more than dirt packed & rutted by hoof, foot, and wheel, and eroded by rain-mud dynamics, the first three ratifications were essentially simultaneous; that is, even in neighboring states, word hardly traveled of one state's ratification before the next had essentially independently done the same. Debate raged in 'potentially dividing' middle states New York & Virginia; it was not yet clear if the fledgling country would be geographically fragmented. But George Washington and James Madison were in Virginia, and John Hancock was in New York; each put his tremendous national stature behind adoption of the Constitution. These several months (from Fall 1787 through Spring 1788) saw intense lobbying, including via the pamphlets which we today call The Federalist Papers. The Founding Fathers were anxious not only for a full nine (9) ratifications, but (as with today's electoral maps) for a few key states to be among the Constitution-ratifying states.

• May-July 1788: the 2^nd pulse of ratifications kicked off after a 3-month hiatus.
• This middle third of the USA's first surge in state growth, sees 5 more states ratifying --
• Maryland, 28 Apr 1788;
• South Carolina, 23 May 1788;
• New Hampshire, 21 June 1788 (#9, a cause for considerable nation-wide celebrations);
• Virginia, 25 June 1788 (losing out as 'ratification state' by 4 days); &
• New York, 26 July 1788, which essentially ended the nail-biting anxiety over the country's prospects of even getting started without severe handicap of geographical fragmentation.
• This 2^nd pulse pushed a ratification race to be the 9^th state, fulfilling minimum national political requirements for the Constitution to go into effect.
• 13 Sep 1788: After hearing New Hampshire became the 9^th state to ratify, Congress proclaims ratification threshold has been reached for enactment; Constitution thereby to be In Effect.
• Confederation Government to cease, new Constitutional Government to convene 4 March 1789.
• The new Congress of the United States of America convened with eleven (11) states.

Constitution's Significance.

Not all was golden, with the first Congress and first President seated. But then, the affairs of humanity seldom see times of peace approaching 'heaven on earth'. But the U.S. Constitution has ushered a few centuries of historically abnormal peaceful transition of political power. Only a few countries, such as Great Britain, have managed this feat for a longer period. We hope, and we pray, that Constitutional Rule of Law will continue in this way for at least a few more centuries, knowing every generation must face its own unique set of threats from greed, pride, and other manifestations of humanity's less noble side. Like the Magna Carta and only a few other documents in all history, the U.S. Constitution is a singular work of hard compromises that nonetheless works so well that dozens of other documents around the world have been modeled off of it for hundreds of years. It is a truly phenomenal document with a litany of firsts that nearly all worked well: Separation of Powers, and Checks & Balances, incorporation of new lands as politically equal states, and anticipation of slavery's abolition, to name a few. The U.S. Constitution was hammered out in heated negotiations and sometimes furious arguments, by men of dramatically different religious, economic, social, & moral outlooks. By mutual consent, they cloistered themselves in the closed-window room through the hot Philadelphia summer days. But they lived among the people of Philadelphia by evening, and slept in various hotels and hosts' houses in the warm & humid nights. Some parts of delegations departed in disgust when their side didn't prevail, and the entire Rhode Island delegation at one point departed. But enough delegations remained, and enough of each delegation signed, for legitimate representation -- which was doubly verified by all states' ratifications within three years after signing. No doubt, it was George Washington's universally-acclaimed prestige sitting in the presidency of that Constitutional Congress, that was the glue holding the partisan patriots together until the end. And again, within a few years, even the state who's delegation failed to sign, still ratified the Constitution. The U.S. Constitution was a historical triumph. It was an act of compromising plans and agendas, argued and distilled by men into workable ideals reduced to a few pages. It was fortunes and prestige all on the line during the fight for ratification in each of the states. It was more agony, and premature aging, especially for Washington and Jefferson, as the men who framed the Constitution heroically guided it through the first twenty years of practical application. Ben Franklin was right: the sun, whittled onto the back of George Washington's chair, was indeed a rising sun. The U.S. Constitution remains impressive enough that, around the world today, constitutions echo the many political breakthrough ideas embodied in the U.S. Constitution. And, sometimes, those other constitutions are also set into peaceful political practice by men & women who actually believe in the words they wrote, perhaps inspired by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin, and all the rest who gave so much up, to get so much in return. It's good to see how 2010 has an American citizenry probably even more aware of our founding document and underlying law, than in 1976. By the way, we should not mistake the last few decades as an era of ignorance. Not all of us have been entirely ignorant of the Constitution all these years. We haven't had much of a megaphone, compared to the Living Constitutionalists, and we have sometimes left our Constitution copies in our book cases for years at a time. But we've never forgotten, and we're glad to see the Constitution become popular again. We're doubly gratified to see it acknowledged as the country's anchor -- not a shifting mirage nor a mere memory. And, for the record ...I still have my hand-annotated copy of the Constitution printed by John Hancock Mutual Insurance Company, "printed in U.S.A." back in 1976.

For More Investigation (in alphabetical order):

• "1846: Year Of Decision", by Bernard DeVoto; Little, Brown, & Co, 1943.
• "American History Atlas"; C.S. Hammond & Company, 1957.
• loc.gov
• "The Constitution of the United States", by John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1976.
• "The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States", Heritage Foundation, 2003.
• "Growth of the USA", a map & list by Paul Pekarek, 1983.
• "The Summer of 1787", by David O. Stewart; Simon & Schuster, 2007.
• "The U.S. Constitution and Fascinating Facts About It", by Terry Jordan; Oak Hill Publishing Co, 2003.
• "We The People", the concluding episode of the series "Liberty's Kids", published by DIC Entertainment Corp (shoutfactory.com), 2002
• "U.S. Constitution", by the Constitutional Convention, George Washington (presiding) & James Madison (secretary), 1787