Sept. 17 is Constitution Day, commemorating adoption of the U.S. Constitution.
Federal contractors are required to have a presentation on that day for their employees. This year, I addressed employees of ARMI, headed by Dean Kamen in Manchester’s Millyard. It was great fun and a chance to reflect on both the New Hampshire and federal constitutions.
New Hampshire’s Constitution was adopted in 1783, during the period after the Revolution and before the U.S. Constitution’s adoption. It largely carried over features from colonial times, when the population wanted protections from the king of England, and was designed to keep things from happening, rather than enabling vast changes quickly.
It had the Executive Council, a large legislature based on population, a small senate based on geography, and many other features such as short terms of office, designed to keep government close to and controlled by the voters.
The state constitution is much longer than the federal one, with a Bill of Rights with 39 articles, including things like the “right of revolution” and many other specified rights, and provisions on the form of government with 101 detailed articles on its structure.
It has been amended many times, but since it was designed to keep government from doing things, only with a great head of steam will anything significant happen to cause major change.
On the other hand, the U.S. Constitution was designed to make things happen. Many assume the preamble — “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union … ” — is flowery and aspirational. It isn’t. It’s a report about failure. The prior attempt to form a government was the Articles of Confederation, basically a treaty among 13 independent states. It didn’t work.
The Articles left almost everything to the states themselves to decide, but the new system ceded power to a central government, with the first article concerning the Congress, which the founders thought to be the most important branch of government, followed by the executive, and then a very brief third article establishing “a Supreme Court and such inferior courts” as the Congress would decide. Other provisions, designed to fix what was wrong with the prior system, gave “full faith and credit” to the laws of other states and the guaranty of the republican form of government. It is much shorter and to the point than the New Hampshire document.
After adoption, criticism ensued, so before it was sent for ratification, the first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, were added to satisfy concerns. Later, many more amendments were added to fix issues or add rights.
In my presentation at ARMI, employees were polite and asked intelligent questions. When faced with the final part of the presentation, many hesitated. I posed the interesting issue of why our constitution has worked when hundreds of others around the world, often based on ours, have not?
The answer is that it works because we follow and believe in it, a concept called the “consent of the governed.” It is not fundamental in the law of the universe that a democratic republic form of government will always apply in North America. Indeed, as I reminded the group, Rome was a republic for several hundred years until an emperor took over, Greece was a republic in its golden age, and our experiment has only been in existence since 1789.
We need to remember recent events and examples of nations where an entrenched leader desiring to hold on to power refused to accept the results of a democratic election, or where the military stepped in to take control when it did not like what was going on, or where mobs overthrow a government because they think they have a better idea.
Our democracy has survived because, by and large, we’ve operated within its rules, but there is no guarantee it will continue and not go the way of most in history.
We have to resist those who lie, don’t recognize facts, won’t play by the rules we all salute, and refuse to follow the will of the majority, as long as that will protects the rights of all.
I reminded the group of Benjamin Franklin’s answer to the person who asked him, coming out of the Constitutional Convention, “What have you given us, Dr. Franklin?” His reply: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Brad Cook is a Manchester attorney. The views expressed in this column are his own. He can be reached at bradfordcook01@gmail.com.