The pages are faded, the script fine and stylistic. But written with flourish, big and bold, you can clearly read the words, “We the People.”
The last day of a 7-day trip to our nation’s capital focusing on the perils and promises faced by our Black sisters and brothers, my wife and I stood in the dimly lit rotunda of the National Archives Museum.
We’d begun this self-styled tour on the west end of the National Mall where monuments are dedicated to great leaders who, in spite of their shortcomings, pointed the way to a better world. We ended our visit at the east end where buildings are dedicated to documents and institutions that enable us to fulfill that promise.
Monumental leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., didn’t fly solo. They worked in partnership with a host of fellow countrymen and women across the nation and generations, together forging that new world. For better or worse, “we the people” did that. This grand experiment has paid dividends despite serious failings.
“We the people” inevitably fall short. As Isaiah 40 declares, all people are like flowers and grass. The prophet of old was contrasting human beings with the word of God which endures forever. Like grass and flowers, people and their faithfulness are short-lived. In the heat and drought, they wither. They bend whichever way the wind blows. They grow tired and weary; they stumble and fall.
Some like Lincoln are capable of impressive growth. Others like Thomas Jefferson soar to heights only to disappoint. Yet no human endeavor, however great, can possibly compare with the surpassing greatness of God. Which is why I am not a God & Country kind of guy. Those two just aren’t in the same ballpark.
That said, human endeavor does inspire. Among the billions of documents in the National Archives, Kim and I focused on three: the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
The Declaration of Independence was largely written by Thomas Jefferson and unanimously ratified by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. There is debate – trivial at best – as to whether the official date is the 2nd or the 4th of July 1776. John Adams would tell you the 2nd.
A more collective effort, the US Constitution was written over the summer of 1787. Fifty-five delegates convened again in Philadelphia. They gathered to amend the Articles of Confederation, the nation’s first written constitution, adopted the year following colonial independence.
Instead of amending the Articles, the delegates started over. The Articles proved too weak. A stronger federal government was needed.
Beyond that, there was much disagreement – representation, state versus federal powers, executive power, and slavery, among the more divisive points. The effort required extensive compromise. George Washington, as presiding officer, held the delegates together. Benjamin Franklin, the oldest among them, worked to build consensus. In the end, some delegates still dissented.
This time around the primary authors were James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, with Gouverneur Morris crafting much of the final wording. Jefferson and John Adams, two key players in 1776, were on diplomatic missions in Europe.
The new constitution was signed on 17 September 1787. But it needed ratification by nine states to become official, a process taking another year.
Even then, there was concern that the Constitution lacked a description of individual rights. So, in 1791, the first 10 amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were adopted. This time Madison played the key role in its crafting. But did they apply to everyone?
We already know where Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe stood on the issue of slavery. All deplored the institution yet never ended the practice nationally or in their personal lives, hoping it would just fade away. It did not.
Morris was an outspoken opponent of slavery. Adams never owned a slave and was opposed to the practice, but also believed abolition should be gradual. Hamilton opposed slavery, though he likely trafficked on behalf of family members.
As a young man, Franklin bought, sold, and held enslaved persons. Then his views changed radically; freeing his enslaved, he became a staunch abolitionist till his death.
John Jay, who greatly opposed slavery, purchased a 15-year-old African he found captive in the Caribbean to keep him from being forced into hard labor. The teenager’s slavery terms were more like indentured servitude, lasting only a handful of years.
What do we make of these enslaving leaders? As with Franklin and Robert Carter III, some of their contemporaries came to radically different views, placing them ahead of their time.
When we say someone is merely “of their time,” what are we saying? Isn’t “of their time” just polite excusing for what we now find repugnant?
In this sense, the Constitution was of its time. Yet it also proved a radical departure from the 18th century norm. As were the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, the latter not fully realized until the latter 20th century.
Overall, these founding documents speak to the higher ideals and aspirations of a people, our people, who said we could make the world a better place. That we could live as though all people truly are created equal. We all – female, male, young, old, of whatever race or ethnicity, whatever views in life, of whatever abilities or giftings – all of us, have inalienable rights – to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
These documents speak of checks and balances, of separation of powers. They tell us no one individual – no matter how rich or powerful – is above the law or is a law unto themselves. They spell out some of those inalienable rights of all people in our nation, regardless of citizenship, rights that include the freedom of worship, of speech, of the press, of petition and protest, of assembly, of due process, and much more.
These documents, imperfectly written as they were, also guarantee their amendability by none other than “we the people”. Where these documents originally fell short or failed to clarify, they now spell out that everyone born or naturalized in the US is a citizen, that all citizens of a certain age and regardless of race, color, gender or financial means have the right to vote, and that everyone (citizen or not) may not be enslaved.
These documents are not perfect, any more than the people who created them. But they are what keep us as a people moving toward our higher ideals.
Upon exiting the National Archives, Kim and I went to two other buildings nearby, structures fundamentally linked with these same documents. I speak of the US Capitol and the Supreme Court building.
For years, the Supreme Court met in the Capitol, until finally and fittingly in 1935 it had its own building. Here in these two imposing edifices the laws of the land have been made, determined, and upheld, all in accordance with what those documents, preserved in the National Archives, spell out.
We first visited the Supreme Court building and took a quick look at the courtroom where the supreme justices deliberate. Here they have atoned for the sins of their predecessors, declaring “separate but equal” unconstitutional just a year before I was born.
Then we toured the US Capitol. We wanted to see where the Supreme Court deliberated before its own building was built. The Old Supreme Court Chamber was closed, there where the despicable Dred Scott ruling of 1857 was handed down. But we saw the Old Senate Chamber where the Supreme Court made segregation the law of the land in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
The Capitol has also been the site of many significant milestones on the part of Congress, including passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and the civil rights acts of the 19th and 20th centuries. These two buildings have impacted many lives.
Like the leaders we mentioned, these institutions of our government have often fallen short, betraying the very documents on which they are founded. But over the past 2.5 centuries, these branches of government, together with the Executive, have in the long run supported the peoples’ effort to move toward what the Constitution called “a more perfect union.”
The night before his assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr., echoed Moses of old when he said he was looking over into the Promised Land. 60 years later, we may not yet be fully arrived, but we are well on our way.
We’ve come far from when the rights enumerated above were but an aspiration for most of the people of this land. When those rights did not apply to state or local law. When even white men like me could not vote unless we owned land. We’ve come a long, long way from when Black Americans were legally trafficked into unending bondage, treated like livestock, and counted as only 60% persons.
I am a serious patriot, if not the flag-draped kind. Though I like the flag, I cringe when affection for it approaches devotion reserved for a Higher Being. I cringe when it is cheapened by commercial enterprise or wrapped in partisan demagoguery. I am, to borrow a phrase from departed theologian Gordon Fee, a critical loyalist when it comes to my earthly allegiances – religious or secular.
I applaud that our nation is founded on the truth that all have fallen short of what God intended, which is why we have chosen to replace monarchy with checks and balances, and with separation of powers. Which is why we are a constitutional people. We agree to live by a document that will hold us to our shared values, knowing we are as fickle as Isaiah’s grass.
Government officials and military personnel are obliged to uphold the Constitution. We citizens are their collective overlords. Government leaders report to us, “we the people.” In turn, we citizens are called to ensure that those we elect fulfill their obligation to the Constitution.
My brother and I once stopped at a restaurant that played the national anthem daily at noon as everyone stood and sang. More patriotic-looking customers sang as if they were at a ballgame, which is to say “more out of habit than of heart” – cheering before it was over, as they do at the nearby Phillies stadium. Afterward, the wait staff thanked us for singing more appropriately. We may not have dressed patriotically, but we understood what we were singing about.
I confess I have mixed feelings about our national anthem, yet I affirm what it stands for. That we as a people have come together to form a more perfect union championing freedom, a union and freedom in constant need of perfecting. Thus, I affirm my commitment to stand by the Constitution as far as it is in line with what I understand of the commands of God, my highest allegiance.
As my wife and I noted frequently on our tour, our nation has not always lived up to its ideals. Nothing illustrates this more than our treatment of the African Americans among us. Though we have come a long way, we have no excuse. As the African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, “There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution.”
The documents as originally written or interpreted did not deal fairly with persons of color in our midst. But leaders like Douglass saw in their promise a better way. Douglass, whose most famous speech was “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?”, also stated:
“Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble, consider its purposes.”
249 years ago, our forebears set high aspirations. When it comes to fulfilling those aspirations, peril and promise have filled the intervening years. At times, this grand experiment of “we the people” has looked as though it would fail. Yet it endures – a work in progress, a work never done.
Earlier, I wrote a post on Robert Carter III, the wealthiest man in the colonies who freed more of his enslaved than any of his peers. You can read it here: Robert Carter III lived out what he believed: a prophet in deed.
I’ll be reflecting on our trip more in the months to come, including some recommendations on food, lodging, transportation, and sightseeing if you are headed to Washington, DC, anytime soon. To keep up with these posts, sign up here for free.
Photo: I took this shot from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial facing east toward the Washington Monument and the US Capitol beyond just to the right – June 2025.