The Miracle at Philadelphia-Constitution Day- September 17, 1787 By John Hillen
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-miracle-at-philadelphia/
This Constitution Day is a great time to revisit the classic story of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 235 years ago that gave birth to what Winston Churchill called the Great Republic. Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention by Catherine Dinker Bowen is scrupulously accurate, but told like a great story or a screenplay from a series on HBO or Netflix. A great read. More important, though, it describes a fundamental — perhaps the fundamental — part of the beginning of the great American experiment in self-governance. I’ve been in 85 countries around the world, and even the so-called “stable” countries have struggled with self-governance or the continuity of a constitution. France had 15 constitutions (some say more) between its revolution and 1958! Many countries just haven’t seriously tried self-governance at all.
The U.S. experiment, our one Constitution (with its amendments) and our continuing struggle to create a more perfect union, is truly unique. It survived a civil war, it survived many periods of serious political disagreement, and it holds our system together today. I have great reverence for this document – this blueprint for our democratic republic. I’ve sworn the sacred oath to it four times so far in my professional life.
We take history for granted, thinking it was inevitable it would turn out the way it did. But history is lived forward — and outcomes are hanging in the balance when it unfolds. Nothing is preordained. A long-lasting U.S. Constitution seemed an implausible future as our nation stumbled along in the years after achieving independence from Great Britain. The Constitution we know wasn’t accidental, but it was unlikely. The fact that those men were there at that time and in just that combination of brains, ego, experience, knowledge, talents, and ambition created a combustible mix that produced the most enduring system of self-governance for the greatest nation on earth. Truly, as the book’s title suggests, what happened that summer was a miracle. So labeled by George Washington and James Madison, not just the book’s author.
Former chief justice of the Supreme Court Warren Burger says in the book’s foreword that this is “one of the greatest stories in our history . . . indeed in the history of human liberty.” And that is true despite what we might think are the obvious flaws in the Constitution — namely, dealing with the evil of slavery, the status and rights of Native Americans, the rights of women, and even of unpropertied men. Both things are correct in my opinion — Burger’s judgement about the Constitution and the arc of human liberty, and the short-comings we see in it from our vantage point in the present. F. Scott Fitzgerald reminds us that it is a high measure of intelligence (and I would add historical understanding) — to know that both things can be true at the same time. Moreover, our Constitution turns out to allow for self-correction on the one hand, without revolution and chaos. We get better as a nation. But the Constitution also promotes a foundational stability and continuity on the other hand — so we don’t recreate a system of governance with every new movement, administration, political sentiment or even whimsy that seizes us for a time. We are blessed to have it, and the Republic it created.
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