30 years ago – March 9, 1987
The celebration of the 200th anniversary of our federal Constitution will take place this summer in Philadelphia. …
When one reads Catherine Drinker Bowen’s reissued classic on the Constitutional Convention of 1787, “Miracle at Philadelphia,” one is tremendously impressed not only with the document these 55 delegates from 12 states produced (Rhode Island did not bother to attend), but also with the human drama of debate, compromise, personality clashes behind it. It was, indeed, a miracle that we got a Constitution at all.
Yet this document, with its amendments, is at the heart of the American political system. Government office holders, including the president, take an oath to “defend, protect and preserve” not the United States, but its Constitution! Our nation is a nation founded upon law, law developed to protect us from those who say “I am the law” and law developed by and with the consent of the governed. There is a lot to celebrate about the U.S. Constitution and a lot to discuss in its bicentennial year.
From the editorial “Liberty weekend or miracle at Philadelphia” by George Laird Hunt
