MATTHEW PICCOLO
Staff writer
Many Americans celebrated Constitution Day by attending festive parades, holding scholarly conferences and teaching school lessons on the Constitution. This celebration is fitting given the document’s unique role as a standard of liberty worldwide. Still, many Americans take the Constitution for granted or are ignorant of its principles when, instead, they should appreciate it.
On Sept. 17, 1787, 39 of the 55 delegates to the Convention in Philadelphia signed the U.S. Constitution. That day marked the start of a government that has served Americans for 220 years. The document was the first complete written national constitution and is the longest lasting in history. Despite some imperfections, it has secured the God-given individual liberties of all Americans. The Constitution was a radical political statement and government framework for its time.
It established the first government that recognized all the people as sovereign rather than a king or queen. It secured freedom of religion, speech and the press and the right to life, liberty and property. It separated government powers into three co-equal branches. It created a delicate balance of authority between national and state governments, which has prevented tyranny and oppression for centuries.
Though the Constitution secures individual liberty, a federal republic’s continued success relies on active, informed citizens. Many judges, lawyers and political activists, continue to misinterpret, dismiss, blur, twist and redefine basic constitutional principles for their personal gain or to advance particular social objectives.
Consider, for example, the Kelo v. City of New London case. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that government can take private property from one citizen and give it to another for purposes of private economic development even though the Fifth Amendment says this can be done only for a “public use.” This ruling allows the government to take private property for almost any purpose.
Americans will regret their constitutional ignorance and civic inactivity if they wake to find that such cases have stripped them of their individual liberties. They must understand basic constitutional principles in order to protect their liberty, if they cherish it.
Sadly, masses of Americans are not very familiar with the central components of their own government. On his “Tonight Show” segment called Jaywalking, Jay Leno asks random people on the street questions. Once, he asked, “What are the first three words of the U.S. Constitution?” The person’s reply: “In the beginning.”
On a more scientific note, according to the 2006 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 28 percent of eighth graders knew why the Declaration of Independence was written. Also, only 62 percent of 12th graders knew that the freedom of religion clause is in the First Amendment.
Americans are very busy and often find history and government matters to be boring. But modern technology can make learning easy and accessible. Many resources are available to promote constitutional literacy and awareness of America’s founding. The Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University, along with Pepperdine School of Public Policy professor Gordon Lloyd, has created teachingamericanhistory.org, a Web site that contains easy-to-use explanations, historical documents, audio lectures, and other information about the Constitutional Convention and other facts about American history. This Web site can inform the American history novice or scholar alike about the liberties they should want to keep.
Another new Web site may improve greatly the way students, lawyers, professors and the general public study the Constitution. The Constitutional Sources Project is creating the first online library of Constitution-related materials. At consource.org, anyone can view digital images of original constitutional documents. These documents can help citizens see first-hand how their government came to be.
Pepperdine students, then, can see James Madison’s original notes to the Constitutional Convention or Thomas Jefferson’s letter that explains his view of “separation between church and state.” This access to documents online will help Americans understand the Constitution’s original meaning.
At the end of the Constitutional Convention, a woman named Mrs. Powel approached Benjamin Franklin and asked, “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin responded, “A republic if you can keep it.” As heirs of the most unique, prosperous government framework in history, Americans should study and defend the Constitution if they want to keep it.
09-27-2007