It was on this day in 1787 that the Constitutional
Convention adopted The Constitution of the United States, which (after
ratification by the states) became the nation’s supreme governing document on
March 4, 1789.
September 17th is also called Citizenship Day, the day on
which most immigrants are officially sworn in as new U.S. citizens. Although
Constitution Day and Citizenship Day have been separately observed in various
states (and on different dates) for about 100 years, “Constitution Day and Citizenship
Day,” set as September 17th, became as a legal federal observance, with
legislation championed by Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) in 2004.
The Articles of Confederation, an agreement among the
colonies drafted in 1777 and ratified in 1781, served as an intermediate
governing document for the new nation while it struggled for independence. After
the war, the Articles were found to be woefully inadequate, and the states
agreed that a constitution that would serve the nation well into the
foreseeable future was in order. The Constitutional Convention, made up of 55
delegates from all thirteen states, convened in the early summer of 1787 in
Philadelphia, and began work.
During those summer months, the Convention crafted this document,
with long hours of wrangling debate and discourse over the best way for our new
nation to govern itself. They stifled in
the heat because the windows were usually kept closed. If they were open,
passersby on the street, pausing to listen, often couldn’t resist climbing into
the room and disturbing the delegates with their two-cents’ worth.
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| George Mason, by Boudet, 1811 |
These delegates, made up of citizens from every walk of
life – rich and poor, merchant and planter, clergy and barrister – sacrificed much
of themselves for the benefit of their country. They strove mightily to
conceive a system that would protect and represent the citizens as individuals,
and provide for federal necessities greater than those which individual states
could provide, such as a standing army or foreign policy.
They deliberately set standards that would not favor specific
individuals, interests, or situations, seeking a balance that would stand the
test of time. They wanted a governing document
that did not have to be changed all the time. For when change was necessary, they established measures which
require careful and extensive thought and debate from all angles, to make sure that changes
designed to solve one problem do not generate more problems. They strove for a system
that applied equally, no matter how the nation developed, as cultural,
political, and economic systems fluctuated. They designed the Constitution to regulate these
fluctuations, not be regulated by them.
As soon as the Convention adopted it, Virginia delegate George
Mason objected that it did not address major issues of importance to protect the
American citizen with further federal checks and balances, such as the freedoms
of speech and religious pursuit, and the right to bear arms. He proposed a Bill
of Rights as a body of amendments to the Constitution, and refused to endorse
the Constitution until such rights were adopted. Since he was not a member of
Congress, he pushed James Madison to support the legislation required to enact
these amendments as part of the Constitution.
The Bill of Rights, the Constitution’s first ten amendments, ratified by
ten states, went into effect on December 15, 1791.
This document’s resilience is remarkable. Time and again,
it proves applicable to issues of the present as readily as to issues of the
past. Is it a perfect
document? No. Nothing better, however, has ever been offered to any people anywhere. It includes measures for amendments to rectify some of
its flaws, and many amendments have been added to the original Bill of
Rights.
Those who object to it either haven’t studied
it, or refuse to acknowledge the foresight of those who wrote it. (The document's existence gives objectors the right to object!) Those who
choose to interpret it to suit an agenda deny the careful and thoughtful work of
those delegates, who wrestled with issues as vital today as in 1787. It
behooves us to remember that these were intelligent, educated men, who wrote
what they meant, and meant what they wrote, with a surprisingly discerning eye
far beyond their own cultural, social, economic, and political limitations.
Who are we to second-guess them?
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