We the People . . . Rarely Agree
September 17, Constitution Day, commemorates the 1787 signing of the Constitution. Ever since its creation, the Constitution has provoked patriotic passion and heated debate. Match the quotes below to the historical figure whose view of the Constitution they reveal.
1. "Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form."
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
Abraham Lincoln
Roosevelt spoke these words on March 4, 1933, in his First Inaugural Address— which also included his famous phrase "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." In this speech, FDR first assured the American people that he had faith that the Constitution and current understandings of constitutionally-acceptable presidential power were sufficient to overcome the crisis posed by the Great Depression. He then went on to note that, if necessary for the good of the country, he would ask Congress for executive power equivalent to that granted in wartime.
During his presidency, many of FDR's New Deal reforms would be found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, leading to constant tension and conflict between the President and the court.
2. "In examining the Constitution of the United States, which is the most perfect federal constitution that ever existed, one is startled, on the other hand, at the variety of information and the excellence of discretion which it presupposes in the people whom it is meant to govern."
Pierre-Etienne Du Ponceau
Benjamin Franklin
Alexis de Tocqueville
Marquis de Lafayette
In his book Democracy in America, French thinker, writer, and politician Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), considers the strengths and weakness of the American federal system of government as it was in the early 1830s, when he visited the young country on a 9-month tour. This passage comes from chapter 8 of the book's first volume: "On the Federal Constitution." Subheading "The Federal Constitution, Part V," "Why the Federal System is Not Adapted to All Peoples" looks at the uniqueness of the Constitution and of the expectations it sets out for the people putting it into practice.
3. "A sacred compact, forsooth! We pronounce it the most bloody and heaven-daring arrangement ever made by men for the continuance and protection of a system of the most atrocious villainy ever exhibited on earth."
William Lloyd Garrison
Frederick Douglass
John Murray Spear
Lydia Maria Child
Fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) included this condemnation of the Constitution in the December 29, 1832, issue of his abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. The article in which it appeared, titled "On the Constitution and the Union," denounced the Constitution for allowing slavery to exist in the U.S., calling it a document "dripping" "with human blood."
Garrison famously burned a copy of the Constitution at a 4th of July gathering in Farmingham, MA.
4. "The Constitution was founded on the law of gravitation. The government was to exist and move by virtue of the efficacy of 'checks and balances.' The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing."
Woodrow Wilson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Lyndon B. Johnson
Woodrow Wilson included these words in his 1913 book The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People, which laid out many of the views on which he had campaigned for the presidency. Writing in 1885, in his earlier book Congressional Government, Wilson saw many problems in the United States' established form of government, arguing that the Founders' system of checks and balances obscured responsibility more than it ensured balance. Wilson saw the Constitution as a product of a certain time and place, with questionable relevance to the present day.
For the full text of FDR's 1st Inaugural Address and related primary sources, turn to the Library of Congress's American Memory site "I Do Solemnly Swear . . .": Presidential Inaugurations' page on the speech. Many presidential inaugural speeches make reference to the Constitution, revealing the view of the Constitution that the president giving the speech holds (or claims to hold); search this collection for other presidents speaking on the document and its iconic status in U.S. government and culture.
You might also look at the American Memory collection Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention for 277 primary source documents "relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution."
The National Endowment for the Humanities' EDSITEment looks further at the life and accomplishments of Alexis de Tocqueville in an August 2009 feature on the author and the introduction to his Democracy in America. The feature collects suggestions for teaching the introduction and selected links; a link to the full text of the book's two volumes, hosted by the University of Virginia, is included.
The full text of William Lloyd Garrison's "On the Constitution and the Union" can be read here, as can other articles by Garrison, in TeachingAmericanHistory.org's Document Library (which includes the Constitution and a range of other founding documents).
Project Gutenberg, a database of out-of-copyright public domain texts, hosts the full text of Wilson's The New Freedom, as well as other works by Wilson.
For more on the Constitution, try NHEC's 2008 round-up of Constitution and Constitution Day resources for teachers. Or how about checking out what the U.S. government thinks citizens should know about the Constitution? U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offers a downloadable study guide for the current naturalization test, with sections on the Constitution.
- Ashland University, Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, TeachingAmericanHistory.org (accessed August 6, 2009).
- Barry Faulkner, The Constitution, 1936, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, The Charters of Freedom (accessed August 6, 2009).
- Independence National Historical Park, "Assembly Room, Pennsylvania State House, later named Independence Hall, meeting place of Congress," U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, The Charters of Freedom (accessed August 6, 2009).
- Library of Congress, "I do solemnly swear . . .": Presidential Inaugurations (accessed August 6, 2009).
- Michael Kammen, A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture (New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1994).
- National Endowment for the Humanities, EDSITEment (accessed August 6, 2009).
- Project Gutenberg (accessed August 6, 2009).
- University of Virginia, American Studies Programs, Democracy in America: Tocqueville's America (accessed August 6, 2009).
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