Constitution Day 2008

Floor Speech

CONSTITUTION DAY 2008 -- (Senate - September 17, 2008)

Mr. CORNYN. I have some remarks, this being Constitution Day, that I want to make in closing. It was 221 years ago today when the delegates of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia completed their work; 39 of them signed it and gave us the very Government we have come to know, we have come to love, and, sometimes, there are those who say they have come to loathe it.

But today, we celebrate the very fact that we live in a country where people have the freedom of speech, that we have our political rights to petition Government, where Government's power is acknowledged to come from the governed, ``we the People'' as Lincoln said, ``Government of the people, by the people and for the people.'' It is not the decision of a small group of people here in Washington, DC that somehow has to be fed to us like castor oil and we have to take it. This literally is a government of the people representing all 300 million of us who live in this country that was created that day by that Constitution.

Mr. President, it was on this day, September 17, 1787, that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia completed their work. Thirty-nine of them signed the U.S. Constitution, setting up the government system that we have come to know, love, and sometimes loathe.

As Senators, we have sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. This is a duty and a responsibility that does not discriminate based on our party ideology. Still, it is our mutual love for and defense of the Constitution that often provokes our most vigorous debates in this chamber. This spirited debate is vital to liberty and the continued survival of our Nation.

If you read Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention, you will see that the delegates themselves engaged in a lively debate about how to best implement the principles of liberty, equality, and justice established in the Declaration of Independence. Years later, during the jubilee celebration of the Constitution, John Quincy Adams said, ``The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are parts of one consistent whole, founded upon one and the same theory of government.''

With population growth, increasing diversity, agricultural and economic development and massive technological advancement, our Nation has changed tremendously in the 221 years since the Constitution was signed. Yet, despite these changes, there remains a fundamental consistency in human nature.

James Madison expressed it best in the Federalist Papers, Number 51: ``If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.''

You see, we are indebted to the Founding Fathers for their wisdom and foresight. They understood that human nature would be unlikely to change, and that 18th century and contemporary American policymakers would be pressured to promote policy solutions that may not serve the public interest.

According to Madison, ``Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. ..... These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.''

Madison was concerned about the effect of special interest groups on the policy process. In Federalist 10 he wrote, ``The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. .....''

``So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.''

In a pure democracy, Madison argues, ``A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. ..... Such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.''

Since it is impossible to force everyone to share the same opinion and intensity of opinion, Madison seeks to control the effects of factions by creating a republican form of government.

``The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are,'' he writes, ``First, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended''.

``The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people''.

Madison was skeptical that elected representatives would always act in the public interest. ``Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm,'' he wrote in Federalist 10.

Today, we have only to see the parade of huge spending bills that find their way to the floor to know that it is a herculean task to whet, much less control the appetites of the hundreds of organized interest groups who want their piece of the federal pie made with tax dollars collected from hard working American families.

The entitlement mentality of many of these organized groups, many of which cannot lay claim to a substantial number of members, has pressured an all too receptive Congress to grow the size of government, increase spending to new heights, while we ignore insolvency of large entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, and hope that our children and grandchildren will bail us out for our bad decisions.

In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution that establishes a system of separate institutions that share policymaking and political power. This was a clear effort to control the effects of factions and to guard against despotic rulers.

The public elections established by the Constitution encourage the electorate to select their representatives wisely.

For those of us privileged to be elected by the people, we have a sworn obligation to protect and defend the Constitution and to show ourselves worthy of this great trust.

On any given day, not just anniversary dates like today, it is something we ought to think more about.

I see my colleague from Louisiana here. I am going to yield the rest of our time that we have in morning business to him.

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