Speeches and Remarks

Constitution Day
September 17, 2007

As many of you know, we did not have a July 4 celebration this year.  We had planned to celebrate our Independence Day aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz when it was here in early July, but rough seas capsized our plans.  When we thought about when to reschedule our event we seized upon September 17 – Constitution Day, which marks the day in 1787 – 220 years ago -- when the writing of our Constitution was completed and that document was signed.

Actually, the occasion is a little known one.  Very few Americans can tell you the significance of September 17.  Almost every American, however, can tell you the significance of the document it celebrates; the blueprint for our government and the guarantor of our precious “Constitutional rights.” 

A day when we celebrate the Constitution is an appropriate counterpoint to July 4, which celebrates our Declaration of Independence.  No doubt, these are the two most important documents in our history.  They play different but very complimentary roles.  It seems to me that the Declaration answers the question why.  Why we sought independence as well as what are the principles for the new nation.  The Constitution addresses the question of how.  How do we organize ourselves to fulfill those principles, to be independent, free and united?

The answer – the Constitution -- is remarkable for its brevity and its flexibility, and for the important concepts it encompasses, many of them new or used in practice for the first time: recognition of the sovereignty of the people; federalism; limited government; the separation of powers and a system of checks and balances to prevent the accumulation of too much power by any individual or institution.  And, crucially, the recognition of fundamental human rights in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the famous Bill of Rights.

The Constitution also is remarkable for its durability.  Since those first ten amendments, it has been changed only 17 times.  Two centuries of freedom, growth and prosperity have proven the foresight of the 55 men who worked through the summer of 1787 to lay the foundation for our government.

Their achievement has been recognized beyond the U.S.  Long-time British Prime Minister William Gladstone called the American Constitution: the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.  The American Constitution is the world’s oldest written constitution, and it has influenced a number of other constitutions around the world – including India’s.

Archibald Cox, former Solicitor General of the U.S. and a key actor in the Watergate “Constitutional crisis” said: The original Constitution still serves us… because the framers had the genius to say enough but not too much.

I certainly am no genius, but I do recognize the importance of not saying too much.

To close, allow me to note that the framers of the Constitution set down the objectives of their work with remarkable clarity in a 52-word preamble to the principal document.  I believe that preamble is worth sharing with you.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I thank you for joining us for this celebration of the Constitution and of 231 years of the blessings of liberty in America.