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The Constitution defines who we are as citizens and that's why I'm very pleased to be here
on Citizenship Day and to celebrate our Constitution. The Constitution was signed 226 years ago
tomorrow. The establishment of the United States Constitution and its endurance as a
living document for all that time is perhaps as improbable as our nation's victory over
the British Empire in the American Revolution. In fact, that ability to endure is likely
a direct result of the times in which it was created.
You gotta understand, after the American Revolution, people were tired, people were tired of government.
Tired of being told what to do. After all, they had fought a war, a long war, to become
independent.
But pretty soon, it became clear, in order for everyone to prosper and for this new nation
to operate as a real player on the world stage, it needed to establish a national character.
And to establish that "national character", as George Washington noted in 1783, we needed
"a constitution that will give consistency, stability, and dignity to the union."
The formation and the endurance of the Constitution is truly a study in advanced citizenship.
The beauty of the system of government the Constitution has given us has been in its
ability to enforce, expound and protect our rights as individuals and as a people. It
didn't try to solve everything. It was intentionally vague in many respects.
And as Donald T. Phillips noted in his book "The Founding Fathers on Leadership" and from
which I've borrowed liberally for these remarks, he said in 1909, nearly a century and a quarter
after the Constitution was written, Wilbur Wright could just as easily had been describing
the Constitution when he described his new "Aeroplane" that he and his brother Orville
had just invented and succeeded in testing. He described it as this, "the construction
has been called crude, but its crudeness lies only in its simplicity, and is therefore a
great advantage. It can be packed and shipped more easily than any other . . . and its construction
is such as to enable it to suffer hard knocks with little damage."
The Constitution has been tested many times in its 226 years. Indeed perhaps the greatest
test was during the Civil War when the issue of slavery finally did reach a boiling point.
And it was from that great Civil War that our state was born 150 years ago now this
summer. And 50 years ago it was tested again during the civil rights movement.
How will the Constitution be tested in your lifetime? Will it be tested because of growing
economic inequality? Will it be tested because of how technology has transformed and will
continue to transform our lives? No one really can say.
But what we can be sure of is that the Constitution will be at the fore in any future fight over
injustice, because justice was at the forefront of priorities in establishing the Constitution
and this great nation.
You see, justice is at the heart of America. It's the one thing that most defines and will
continue to define the American idea. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said "the arc of the
moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." But that arc does not bend on its
own. The framers of the Constitution helped it bend, the citizens who ratified the Constitution
helped it bend a little more and each and every citizen has helped in each and every
way bend it just that little bit more, and we, you -- together, as citizens, because
we cannot do it apart -- will see that arc form a circle. Until then, we must continue
to aspire toward a more perfect union, establish justice where ever there is injustice, and
insure and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity.
I want to thank you for letting me join you here today. May God bless each and every one
of you, and may God bless the United States of America.