The Daughters of the American Revolution are celebrating Constitution Week, and and the Nathaniel Massie Chapter has events today in Chillicothe.
As the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia says,
“On September 17, 1787, a group of men gathered in a closed meeting room to sign the greatest vision of human freedom in history, the U.S. Constitution…
“The Constitutional Convention started in May 1787 in Pennsylvania’s State House (which is now called Independence Hall). During four months of deliberations, the delegates drew up a plan for a new form of republican government that replaced a weak central government established by the Articles of Confederation.”
For the 237th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution today, the Daughters of the American Revolution offer “Constitution Minutes.” Here is the first.
Constitution Minute: A New Government in the Constitution
It is often remarked that the Constitution is brief, clocking in at just 4,440 words. And, that it is the oldest written constitution of any major country in the world. It can be argued that it is in its simplicity and brevity with its clear process for amendments that has kept the law of the land relevant for two hundred and thirty-three years.
At the time the delegates convened in Philadelphia, ostensibly to revise or amend the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, they had experience to guide them. They knew what did work and what didn’t work and how citizens accepted and rejected governmental strictures.
Plus, with their extensive study of governments of the past, the writing of the state constitutions, and vision of what they wished to accomplish, they were content to set out the basic framework of a new government—a government with a mechanism for adaptation should the need arise.
They knew they could not possibly anticipate what might happen in the future and provide for it at that moment.
Were the delegates seeking perfection, they could have written a constitution as complex as did the French after their Revolution.
Both shared much of the same Enlightenment philosophy. Instead, they sought to form “a more perfect union,” and trusted future generations to correct any deficiencies.
The French followed theirs with eleven more constitutions…plus three charters during the Restoration period.
