Constitution Day

It’s me, Richard Saunders of Poor Richard’s Almanac fame, here to remind you that today, September 17, is Constitution Day. On September 17, 1787, eleven years after the Declaration of Independence, George Washington and other patriots such as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, and Robert Morris signed the Constitution into law. It begins:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The Constitution goes on to delineate the powers of the Congress, the President, the judicial branch, and the states. It’s a comparatively concise document, and you can read it in its entirety in about five minutes online at websites such as http://www.usconstitution.net/. And on the same website, you can read the amendments that make up the Bill of Rights, those individual rights championed by James Madison and others that insure our individual liberty and safety as U.S. citizens.

Though certain amendments, such as the right to bear arms, freedom of speech, religion, and assembly, not to mention the passage and repeal of Prohibition, have gained considerably more attention than other amendments, I’d like to bring two to your attention:

Amendment 9, ratified 12/15/1791: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment 10, also ratified 12/15/1791: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

What these amendments collectively make clear is that the Constitution was not designed to delineate the rights of the people, but the function of the branches of government and the role of the individual states versus the central government. As they clearly state, just because an individual right is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution or Bill of Rights does not invalidate it; rather, unless it is specifically invalidated in one of these documents, it is presumed to be in effect.

Talk about empowering! These days, we too often look to the government as a sort of super-nanny, telling us when we have permission to breathe or speak or cross the road unsupervised. But these amendments tell us the Founders had very different ideas, that we Americans were free to live our own lives and make our own way unless we violated a comparatively few overarching laws. That we were being viewed as adults agreeing to a collective government by consent, not children being told what we could and couldn’t do.

Really? Absolutely. Go to the website, read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and see for yourself. It is not, ultimately, our tripartate government, but the guaranteed rights of the individual, that sets America apart and makes us great.

Happy Constitution Day!

           —RS