Supporting Constitution Day

Floor Speech

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Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate his kind words. I am honored to rise today in support of House Resolution 1612, which honors our United States Constitution on September 17 as Constitution Day.

You know, in the not-too-recent past, too few people in this country knew what was in this document. As the gentleman has previously said, it is about 4,400 words. That is all there is, 4,400 words. But I think over the last couple of years, more and more people are turning to it to find out exactly what is in here and how this place operates and how this country operates. And I think it is important. I have always been a student of history, and I think it is important to know where we came from in order to know where we are going. I think it is important that folks recognize September 17, that they should sit down and just start leafing through the Constitution.

I know this coming Friday, when we are all back in our districts again, I'm going to be back in my district talking at a school. From there, I'm going to go to a university in my district and talk about the Constitution and what it means to us. I think it's important that people know what it is because, again, as I said, people have got to understand how we are and why we are the way we are.

As the gentleman has said, this document has been in existence for 223 years from September 17. As just a little bit of background on how we got here, James Madison, when he was still in Virginia, really understood that the Articles of Confederation weren't working in this country. There was a dispute that was going on, and they wanted to really get something worked out with Maryland, so they kind of sat down and came up with an idea of having some kind of a get-together, a meeting, in Philadelphia.

The question really was at that time: Were they going to, A, just look at the Articles of Confederation and try to amend those, which is what a lot of the delegates who attended thought they were doing, or, as Madison thought, were they really going to sit down and bring forth a great new document that would get us past that trying time in our country's history and move us forward?

There was great debate, because as they assembled in 1787, in May of that year, and as the delegates were coming in from around the country from 13 States, in the debate, they were saying, Well, we should be doing this or we shouldn't be doing that because we're only supposed to be here for the Articles of Confederation; but folks really started sitting down and looking at the issue.

As they were looking at this, more and more people came to the conclusion which Madison had, and he had gone there prepared. It's amazing what he had done if you look at his background and what Madison was, but he went there. He had gone through the ancient charters, going back to Greece, to Rome, going across the world; and he looked at the best that was there at that time that they could examine. He brought those things with him, and then the debates began.

The great thing about it was there were debates, and there was open discussion, but the open discussion was only amongst the members because, during that time, they said, you know, We do not want this to get out, so they actually closed the doors and shut the windows. Now, you've got to remember that this was one of the hottest years that they had had on record for a summer in Philadelphia. They closed the windows. They posted a guard at the door, and they didn't want anybody to know what the discussions were. Everybody was under pretty much an oath of secrecy that they would not go out and discuss what was being said in there at that time. We would know it today as a complete press blackout.

Though some of the members got disgruntled, they went home. Some of them came back, but some of them just said, You know what? I'm fed up with this. We shouldn't be doing what we're doing, and they left. Yet the ones who stuck it out are the ones to whom we owe our being where we are today.

You start looking at this document and the people that presided over that Constitutional Convention--you know, George Washington being the presiding officer, and then there also was a deputy from Virginia. You look at some other individuals--Alexander Hamilton from New York, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, Governor Morris of Pennsylvania, of course James Madison, who we all know is the Father of our Constitution. These individuals made sure that they put forth a document that we would have and hold so dear to us today.

There were a lot of people at that time from around the world who were still looking at this fledgling country and asking, Can it really exist? Can it survive? But this little document, these 4,400 words, showed the world who we were as Americans and what we stood for.

Now, there was a lot of conflict, and there were a lot of things on which they could not come to a resolution during that time--slavery was one of them--but they hoped at some point in time that Americans would come to a resolution on that. As we saw this document progress during that time. On September 17, 1787, they finally came to a resolution, and they signed the document.

It's interesting because it's reported that, when Benjamin Franklin left Constitution Hall, a woman met him outside. She asked--and I'm paraphrasing--Mr. Franklin, what have you given us? He said to her in reply, A republic if you can keep it.

So, for these past 223 years in this country, it has been important that every generation read this document to understand who we are and why we want to preserve it. It is so important, in my opinion, that on September 17, this coming week, that we honor the Constitution with Constitution Day. I

would urge everyone to sit down, to pick up their little pocket Constitutions, to just read them, and to thank those individuals. In my opinion, the good Lord gave us such a small window of time, and He put so many great minds in one room to give this great document.

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