A Landmark Day In Our History – How Come So Many Are Clueless?

his is one of the most important days in the history of American....do you know what it is?  Better question, do you know why so many don't?  Why we don't have some kind of national recognition for it?  We have a President's Day honoring the men of vision, courage, and conviction who founded a nation and held it together, shouldn't we have a day for the document that is the framework for the freedoms we enjoy?

Shouldn't we have a National holiday for the Constitution?

On Background

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. ...  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....George Washington presided over the Convention, which featured many of the great minds of the day  ... On September 17, the group met one last time to agree on how the Constitution would be sent to the Confederation Congress to start the ratification process with the states."

There is the story of what happened immediately after the meeting as recounted by Maryland delegate James McHenry who wrote, "A lady asked Dr. Franklin, ‘Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy?’ A republic, replied the Doctor, if you can keep it.”

If you can keep it.

How Are We Doing With That?

How do we ensure we keep it when so many of the populace know so little about it, when educators leave out or limit the teachings of the Constitution and why it is such a unique document?  How do we ensure that we keep it when lying politicians and activist judges try to bend, manipulate or ignore the constitution altogether to suit their own interests?

Our second President, John Adams, said it all first.  He was as right then as it seems we are wrong now,

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people"...“Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.”

“When legislature is corrupted, the people are undone"...."But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”

But the quote that rings most true for me is this, "Human passions, unbridled by morality and religion…would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net....Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

A moral and religious people

Fathers Knew Best

In other words, the freedoms it promises and guarantees can be used against us if not deployed by moral people.  Opportunists, cheaters and manipulators can have their way and erode the goodness of the fabric of society and are protected by the Constitution in the process.  Mr. Adams was right. So was Ben Franklin.  Think about their wisdom and the importance of preserving freedom as we, as a nation, don't celebrate or recognize, the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787.

A couple of short videos may help us remember!