This September 17th marks the 225 anniversary of the United States Constitution being adopted as the basis for the American government.
This milestone in America’s history gives an opportunity to look back on the struggles faced in drafting the American Constitution, and how today’s politicians stack up to those who founded the United States of America.
The difference between today’s elected leaders and those of yesteryear are profound. Today, politicians consider the word “compromise” to be a slur, a negative, a sign of weakness or lack of character.
This is in comparison to those who built the foundation on which all our freedoms rest, those who drafted a constitution based on debate and compromise.
The heated debates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia led to innumerable compromises by delegates who were passionate in their positions, but more passionate in their desire to see the dream of America safeguarded for generations to come, to provide for Posterity.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
We Americans, in 2012, are the Posterity referred to in 1787.
New Jersey played a critical role in the most important compromise of the Constitutional Convention which was the establishment of a bicameral legislature, the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The New Jersey delegation, at the time a less populated state, wanted to maintain a one-state one-vote structure to preserve its influence amongst the more populated states – It was called the New Jersey Plan. The larger states wanted representation based on population, arguing that the federal government derives it’s authority from the people and not from the state governments – This was called the Virgina Plan.
The Great Compromise resulted in what we now have with states apportioned equal representation through the Senate, and the number of representatives in the House reflecting a state’s population.
This was the Great Compromise, but the Constitution was debated clause by clause with heated arguments for and against each power granted the federal government. On September 17th, 1787 it was adopted, and Benjamin Franklin summed it up when he stated, “There are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them….because I expect no better and because I am not sure that it is not the best.”
It was debate and compromise that delivered the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and it was debate and compromise that delivered to a faltering nation a new structure of government in 1787.
Debate and compromise has served Posterity well, but respect for compromise has reached a new low today in American politics where elected leaders cast each other in demonic roles, each claiming the other is the death knell of America, each claiming the other will lead the nation down the road to perdition, each claiming the mantel of savior.
The Constitution adopted on September 17th, 1787 gave America a structure for government, it provided balances, it provided checks, but it did not – could not – define the spirit of liberty that inspired a generation to fight the greatest empire of its time. It did not – could not – define the spirit of liberty which enabled America to become the greatest nation in the history of the world.
The Bill or Rights, which is the true hallmark of individual liberties throughout the world, came into effect as Constitutional Amendments on December 15, 1791. These natural rights and personal freedoms reflect the spirit of American liberty – but still do not define it.
It should be noted that today American embassies around the world face violent protests not because of an obscure Youtube video, but because America is a free society. Above all other nations, America remains the model of liberty and Americans continue to sacrifice their lives for it.
Perhaps the closest definition of American liberty ever proffered comes from Judged Learned Hand in a speech given in 1944 during a celebration for “I Am an American Day”, now called “Citizenship Day”, now celebrated on September 17th.
“I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it… What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith.
The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of those men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten – that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side-by-side with the greatest.” – Judge Learned Hand