Perhaps most people aren’t even aware that Monday is Constitution Day or even what the day commemorates. A recent Washington Times/JZ Analytics poll demonstrated that a broad cross section of Americans do not have a strong understanding of the Constitution. This is a shame. Everybody celebrates the day that Americans declared their independence from Great Britain, but far fewer people are even familiar with the events, or the document, that launched us as a nation.
The story begins with an unlikely hero: a soft-spoken, studious politician from Virginia by the name of James Madison. Madison asked his friend, Thomas Jefferson, to send him hundreds of volumes on politics from France, so that he could begin a research project on ancient and modern confederacies.
Closeted away at Montpelier, his rural home in Virginia, Madison explored the virtues and, even more importantly, the vices of confederacies, both past and present. His purpose was to experiment with ways to improve upon older models, and his investigations bore more fruit than most research projects ever do. The exercise was never meant to create a federal government so powerful that it would stifle state governments or individual initiative. It was about striking a balance between national and state government, all the while ensuring it is always the citizens who are in charge.
...this September 17, the 225th since the signing of our great charter of liberty, be sure to celebrate those eminent Americans—such as George Washington and James Madison—who designed a Constitution that would “establish justice … and ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Their accomplishment is worth celebrating.
The History Room
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