Constitution Day: An Occasion for Reflection | Opinion

Constitution Day falls on September 17, and it doesn't get anywhere near the recognition it deserves. If Independence Day is a major national celebration, Constitution Day is a minor footnote on the calendar by comparison. We don't need fireworks and barbeques to mark the occasion, but at the least, every American school, community, and individual citizen should spend time reflecting on the meaning of the Constitution.

In 2004, U.S. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia was concerned that we weren't doing enough as nation to understand and teach the U.S. Constitution. He championed a legislative provision to officially recognize September 17 as Constitution Day. And he persuaded Congress to approve a requirement that all federally funded colleges and universities hold an annual Constitution Day event.

Nineteen years later, some institutions take this more seriously than others. My organization, the Jack Miller Center, has been sponsoring Constitution Day lectures, panel events, and other programs on college campuses throughout the country for a number of years.

But college campuses aren't the only places where the Constitution should be taught, studied, and celebrated. Every community in America should observe Constitution Day.

Various cultural and historical organizations like the National Constitution Center, the Bill of Rights Institute, the American Bar Association, and Constituting America are doing their part to promote this observation. But as a country, we should do much more to celebrate the Constitution.

Our Constitution has world-historical significance. The American Founders held wide-ranging views and debated vigorously among themselves, but they agreed that their country's destiny mattered to all mankind. In the first installment of the Federalist, for example, Alexander Hamilton wrote about "the important question" on which the people had been called to deliberate: "whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force."

In short, the time had come for the American people to examine their capacity for ongoing deliberation—and the outcome would determine whether human beings could govern themselves. Echoing the writers of the Federalist Papers 76 years later, Abraham Lincoln famously declared that the Civil War was a similar test. The outcome of that conflict would determine whether American constitutional principles "can long endure." Time and time again, our greatest statesmen framed constitutional questions in these high, world-historical terms. The survival of the republic did not just matter for the here and now, but for people across the planet and generations yet unborn.

John Adams, for one, was a true believer in the possibility of a deliberative republic. Adams believed "the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the difference between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice." Human beings make distinctions. They make moral judgments. And that means we are capable of governing ourselves.

Political philosopher Ralph Lerner has argued that the Founders were people who valued reason and who understood themselves as reasoning people. He writes that the Founders "thought for themselves and then deployed the results of their thinking coolly to reason with the reasonable, to persuade the persuadable, and to impress the impressionable." Constitution Day is an occasion to imitate the Founders' virtues—a reminder that we, too, must think for ourselves and reason together as Americans.

Constitutionalism did not end with the Founding generation. Americans today, 236 years after the fateful convention in Philadelphia, are stewards of the Constitution. September 17, then, should be an important date on our national calendar.

As historian Wilfred McClay writes,

Constitution Day, which we observe every September 17, is a singularly American holiday, even more unique than the Fourth of July. After all, many nations have their great leaders and laborers, their war heroes, their monuments, and their days of independence. But there is only one nation on earth that can point with pride to a written Constitution that is more than 230 years old, a continuously authoritative expression of fundamental law that stands at the very center of our national life.

High schools should hold all-school assemblies to celebrate the Constitution—an occasion perhaps for debate teams to present debates and prepared speeches. But we cannot let citizens' constitutional education stop when they leave the classroom. Businesses, trade associations, and nonprofits should use social media to share information and inspirational content on Constitution Day. Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions Clubs should sponsor Constitution Day Luncheon programs to hear reflections from local judges, or scholars of history, politics, or law. Labor unions and Chambers of Commerce, as well as American Legion and VFW Posts, should conduct "constitutional awareness campaigns" in their communities. Local historical societies, museums, and cultural institutions should highlight local stories that illuminate the Constitution. And TV and radio shows should feature guests discussing various aspects of the Constitution.

Our Founders knew that a country needs an engaged citizenry for self-government to work. Reflection and thoughtfulness are integral to the U.S. Constitution itself, and our celebrations of Constitution Day should be an occasion to practice and inculcate those virtues. It is a moment to remember what makes America so exceptional—and to rededicate ourselves to ensuring that our Constitution "long endures."

Hans Zeiger is president of the Jack Miller Center, a nationwide network of scholars and teachers who are committed to advancing the core texts and ideas of the American Political Tradition.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.