What Is Constitution Day?
In 2004, the U.S. Congress passed a law designating September 17 as “Constitution Day and Citizenship Day” to commemorate the signing of our Constitution in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787.
This law instructed:
- each federal agency to provide educational materials concerning the Constitution to all employees every September 17, and
- each educational institution that receives federal funds to hold an educational program on the Constitution every September 17.
Constitution Day is not a legal holiday. What does it mean to those of us who don’t work for a federal agency or go to a federally-funded school?
The Purposes of Our Federal Government
Perhaps it should remind citizens, lawmakers and politicians our Constitution defined the purposes of our federal government in its Preamble. These purposes are:
- to form a more perfect union [a better United States of America]
- establish justice [behavior or treatment based on what is morally right]
- ensure domestic tranquility [peace and calmness in our country]
- provide for the common defense [America and Americans free from attacks]
- promote the general welfare [prosperity and happiness for all or most people (not government handouts)]
- secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity [ensure the benefits of liberty for all future generations].
These lofty principles should be the guiding light of all government activity. As this is not the case nowadays, let’s reflect on the famous words of Pericles, the Greek statesman, orator and general of Athens during the Golden Age of Greece, 500 to 300 B.C.:
“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”
That Golden Age gave us literature, art, monuments, architecture and philosophy which many consider the building blocks of Western Civilization. However, inept and corrupt leadership would bring this age of enlightenment to an end, coincidentally, shortly after the death of Pericles.
Thomas Jefferson’s Solution to Abuses of Constitutional Power
“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”–Letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Thomas Jarvis, September 28, 1820.
Education is the solution.
Dave Kluge
www.understandtheconstitution.com
Author of The People’s Guide to the United States Constitution. The book presents the original texts of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and all amendments, with enough background, examples, and definitions to easily understand and read straight through these documents.