September 17.
A significant day in the history of the United States of America. On this day in 1787, all twelve state delegations approved the Constitution and it was sent to Congress. You can read the letter of transmittal here.
Have you reviewed the Constitution recently? It is the foundation of our Republic. Today is a good day to take a look at it. It is Constitution Day. If you don’t have a nice hardcover edition, you can find it online. If you don’t have time to review the whole thing, try to at least review the Bill of Rights.
It took 100 days to frame the 4400 word document. James Madison was the only delegate to attend all 100 days, and was one of only two presidents to sign the document. The other was George Washington. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were both overseas serving as U.S. Ministers, Jefferson in France and Adams in Great Britain.
Benjamin Franklin suffered from a bad case of gout, and had a stone in his bladder during the framing. The pain was so terrible he could hardly walk. He was carried into the Convention Hall in a chair carried by prisoners from Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Jail. Franklin was the oldest man to sign the Constitution, and did so with tears running down his face.
One other piece of trivia I found amusing was the dilemma over how to address the President. The Senate wanted to address him as: “His Highness the President of the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties.” The House and the Senate settled on just “President of the United States.”
There have been over 10,000 proposed amendments, yet excluding the Bill of Rights, it has changed only 17 times. Some of the more interesting propositions include one to abolish the U.S. Senate, another to replace the President with “an executive council of three,” and one to limit personal wealth to one million dollars. In 1916, it was proposed that all acts of war be voted on in a national vote. The people would decide whether to go to war. There was one catch- if you voted yes, you had to register to volunteer for service in the United States Army.
There are more interesting bits of information about America’s most important document (such as, out of 4,400 words, “democracy” is not used once). Today is the day set aside to remember and appreciate the Constitution. I hope you take the time to do that. If you have kids, take time to talk about it with them as well. Looking back at the sacrifices made to create it, we can sacrifice an hour or two in remembrance.
Related posts:
