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This coming Sunday, December 15, is “Bill
of Rights” Day. I take it as an opportunity to highlight the importance of the Declaration
of Independence, the Constitution, and yes, the Bill of Rights which is
comprised of the first ten amendments to our Constitution.
These documents are not trivial, or casual
historical documents detached from our lives today. They provide the fundamental
social contract by which we all get along as a nation. Whether it be the right
to religious belief, political opinion, trial by a jury of peers, recognition
of intellectual property (copyright and patent), or many other protections
explicit in the Constitution or derived from the Constitution by Congress or
Supreme Court, these collective documents are as important to us as citizens as
the New Testament is to Christians. Or as other venerated texts to other religious
groups.
On December 15, take a moment
to recognize that your right to your conscience, speech, religion, business or
trade is enabled by these documents. Take a moment to know that these
documents, long held, upheld, and respected, deserve much more than perfunctory
“lip service” from the citizenry, they deserve a commitment from the citizenry
to safeguard them and thereby continue to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and
secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
To be witness to the importance of these documents, I invite you to
watch a video of the Transfer of the founding documents from the Captiol to the
National Archives which took place on December 13, 1952.
The first part of the video shows what a big protective and ceremonial deal
it was to make this transfer. The first part of the video is silent except for
the sound os static from old film. Later, President Truman gives words of accolade
for the documents.
The video is found at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Dc54HYd-Q&t=258s
