Today is Constitution Day, commemorating the signing of the U.S. Constitution and the establishment of our Republic on Sept. 17, 1787. On this Constitution Day, we celebrate America. But what does that mean?
It is sad but true that many Americans are unable to distinguish between the current administration or the current political and societal crisis and America. America, unlike every other country in history, is not fundamentally an ethnicity or an administration or even a geographical location; America is an idea, the idea that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, the idea that We the People have the right to choose and control our form of government.
The men who believed in that idea founded a particular form of government for us on this day — men who, for all their faults and sins, were great. And, with all our faults and sins, we must take up the torch as others have since and fight for liberty, even to the shedding of our blood.
I have heard some say recently, “I want to move out of America.” And where will you go? It is not just that the rest of the world is either war-torn, ruled by vicious tyrannies, plagued by terrorism, or just as woke as the United States now.
Where else in the world has the right to free speech been taken for granted? Where else has religious freedom been implemented with such effort to make all religions exist in harmony? Where else was it recognized that the right to keep and bear arms staves off tyranny? And what other country can boast such a large collection of exceptionally great men as its founders?
Of course, we have fallen many times from those ideals. The Democrat Party almost since its founding has defined itself on explicitly anti-constitutional policies and principles. Many, too many, members of all political parties have violated the Constitution, engaged in corruption, and even betrayed the country (actually most of our federal government now is unconstitutional).
We have had slavery, Civil War, attempted racial genocide, and the current woke sickness. But we always had our magnificent founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, to return to. And every time, heroes arose to rescue and renew America. We must be the heroes of today. Patriotism is most necessary when the Republic is in peril.
It is essential to note that America always failed most when we violated and betrayed our own principles. Even the slave-owning Founders like George Washington recognized that slavery would have to go if America was to survive and thrive. Indeed, as former slave and orator Frederick Douglass noted, the words “slave” and “slavery” never appear in the Constitution, meaning slavery could have been abolished without altering a single word of the Constitution. The point is that slavery was an evil that violated our founding principles, even if the Founders allowed it.
Humans commit sin and folly, which is why we will never have on this earth a perfect union — only a more perfect union. America is worth fighting for. Do we surrender our Constitution and our country without a fight? Will we allow the deaths of millions of brave Americans over the centuries to have been in vain?
This Constitution Day, We the People must reclaim our heritage and look to rebuild it in the future. Only then will God bless America.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member