We The People . . . Forming a More Perfect Union

Quickly, now: what is the significance of this date, September 17, 1787, in our nation’s history?

Kudos if you knew that it is the day that the U. S. Constitution was signed by 39 of the 55 state delegates that attended that miraculous Convention in Philadelphia at which it was not so much written as hammered out.

All of us know and celebrate with flags and fireworks the Fourth of July as Independence Day, the day tradition declares that Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress. The day we became free.

All of us know that the phrase, "Father of our Country," is the, well, seminal title that honors George Washington, who led us to revolutionary victory, presided over the Constitutional Convention and guided the new nation as President for its first eight precedent-setting years.

Few, though, associate our basic law with the name of the man constitutional scholars have long lauded as its Father: James Madison, fourth President of the United States and neighbor and colleague of Jefferson’s.

What did Madison do to earn that accolade? Only that he was the principal author of the constitution’s blue print, know to history as the Virginia Plan; that he served as unofficial recording secretary of the Constitutional Convention and his notes are the best, and nearly the only, record we have of that secretive proceeding; that he wrote xmany of the Federalist Papers, the series of essays that sold the American people on the virtues of their new constitution and that have influenced constitutions world-wide ever since.

And, oh yes, as a member of the first Congress assembled he drafted the first ten amendments to the constitution he fathered, amendments we know as the Bill of Rights.

In Virginia, Montpelier, Madison’s ancestral home, is again open to the public, thanks to its owner, the National Trust For Historic Preservation, following a five-year, $24 million restoration. The goals of the Trust and its partners go well beyond restoration and preservation, however, to giving the nation a place where Madison’s immense contributions can receive the recognition and understanding they deserve.

Madison knew and accepted that his brain child was, and would forever remain, a work in progress. Now that work continues on the grounds of Montpelier in the form of a new Center for the Constitution, where visiting historians and law professors tutor high school teachers and the occasional government official in constitutional theory.

The Constitution has changed as we have changed. While only 27 of the estimated 9,000 proposed amendments have been adopted, the courts have been busy applying its tersely eloquent provisions to the concrete facts of specific cases brought before them. For somebody must interpret its meaning if every wrong is to have its remedy.

So it was that in the case of Marbury vs Madison (1803) the Supreme Court ruled "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." The Constitution was only in force for 14 years when Madison’s fellow Virginian, Chief Justice John Marshall, wrote those words, easily the most important of his 35 year tenure on the Court.

But has it changed enough to keep up with our times? Another Virginian, Larry J. Sabato, doesn’t think so. His book, "A More Perfect Constitution," was published in 2007. It’s subtitle says it all: "23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country."

Sabato, founder and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, has an on line presence as well: www.centerforpolitics.org. There you can vote on his proposals (My favorite would require impartial redistricting), compose your own 24th proposal or comment on the multi-colored opinions and attempts at constitution writing by your fellow citizens. It, too, is a work in progress at which we all can labor.

But isn’t the Constitution a sacred text not to be tampered with? Many think so. But let wise old Ben Franklin again have the last word. Because Franklin was old and frail it was read for him by James Wilson as the Constitutional Convention closed in his beloved Philadelphia. Addressing Washington as chair, he said in part:

"I confess that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present; but, sir, I am not sure I shall never approve of it, for, having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged . . . to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. . . I agree to this Constitution with all its faults—if they are such—because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered. . .

"I doubt, too, whether any other convention . . . may be able to make a better Constitution; for, when you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?

"It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does. . . Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best. . ."