Here’s a simple three-part quiz: What’s Constitution Day, when is it observed, and why isn’t it a national holiday?
The answers: Constitution Day commemorates the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787. As a matter of law, it is “observed” — casually at best, in most cases — on September 17 each year.
I can’t tell you why it’s not a national holiday, except that most of our national holidays seem to focus on people. Presidents Day marks the February birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Martin Luther King Jr. Day salutes the civil rights icon. Columbus Day commemorates Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas.
Constitution Day, by way of contrast, is not about people, but about the ideas and ideals that make America unique.
And in the community of nations we are unique. What unites us as a country is not our fealty to an ancient heroic ruler or a beloved ruling family. We also are not united by our common religion; our ethnicity; or our social class. We are instead united by ideas — our natural rights to liberty and equality described in the Declaration of Independence — which are secured in our Constitution.
This Constitution describes the organization and operation of our national government, protects our rights as citizens and, with careful thought and great care, places limits on the power that “we the people,” through our government, may exercise upon one another.
In 2004 federal lawmakers designated September 17 Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, instructing government agencies, in the words of the Library of Congress, to provide their employees with “educational and training materials” on the Constitution and instructing all schools receiving federal funds to “hold a program for students” on this day.
The U.S. Constitution, one of the most important political documents in the history of the world — cited daily in news stories, legal arguments and political speeches — has been reduced to an afterthought. This half-hearted approach to appreciating the founding document of our nation speaks volumes about our understanding of its importance.
As the Constitution’s primary author, James Madison, once observed, “A well-instructed people alone can be permanently free.”
The place to start with this instruction is our schools.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the vast majority of U.S. students don’t even know the basics. In a multiple-choice question in the 2014 test, for instance, just 51 percent of 8th graders could correctly identify a purpose of government named in the Preamble of theConstitution.
This isn’t the fault of America’s 125,000 American history and government teachers, however. The problem is the way teachers are trained; they spend too much time learning how to teach and not enough time learning what to teach.
To successfully teach U.S. government and history, so students understand how our Constitution makes America distinctive, teachers need to rely less on textbooks and more on the writings and thinking of those who shaped our country.
The best way to teach students about the Constitution is to have them read and discuss the Constitution, and read and discuss what Madison and the other Founding Fathers said of their effort.
None of this is a mystery. Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay explained their thinking in a series of newspaper articles at the time, now known as the Federalist Papers. Others wrote as Antifederalists arguing against the Constitution. Madison also compiled a detailed day-by-day “Report of the Debates” during the Constitutional Convention. These and other such documents provide a firsthand, unfiltered account of America’s founding — and the rationale and compromises that forged our political system.
So long as U.S. schools and other public institutions treat the U.S. Constitution as a once-a-year afterthought, others will have to pick up the slack. We’re doing our part offering nationwide programs for teachers as well as our website, TeachingAmericanHistory.org, which features more than 2,000 primary source documents and writings that have helped shape America’s history.
Constitution Day is meaningful only if the Constitution has meaning to us. Today that is sadly lacking in many cases, which is something that needs to change.
