Toward a More Perfect Union: America's Unfinished Assignment

As we celebrate the founding of the United States we are presented with an opportunity to look back at our history, our founding, and also to look forward into the future, to dream the possibility of an enduring United States of America into existence.

Each Fourth of July we celebrate the courage of those who declared independence. We remember the sacrifices of those who fought to establish a new nation. We honor the remarkable achievement of creating a constitutional republic unlike any the world had seen before.

Even in today's political climate, the 250th anniversary of the United States deserves every bit of that celebration. But we must also look forward into the future and ask, "will our descendants celebrate what we have done with the country we inherited?"

Two hundred and fifty years ago our nation came into being with a dream of a future of that the founders laid the foundation for.

The Constitution begins with one of the most memorable and simultaneously overlooked sentences ever written in the history of self-government. Before it establishes a Congress, creates a Presidency, defines the powers of the courts, or limits the authority of government, it answers a more fundamental question.

Why does this government exist?

Its answer is not a list of institutions. It tells us that our purpose is to form a more perfect Union and provides us with five aspirations to strive for as we carry that commitment into the future.

1. To establish justice.

2. To insure domestic tranquility.

3. To provide for the common defense.

4. To promote the general welfare.

5. To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

   
   

The Constitution does not not declare that justice has been established. It does not proclaim that liberty has been secured. It does not promise the completion of the work.

Instead, every one of these purposes is expressed as an aspiration; as work that must continually be undertaken.

The Constitution does not begin with accomplishments. It begins with responsibilities.

Over the past two hundred and fifty years, we have devoted enormous attention to the mechanisms of the Constitution. We debate the powers of Congress, the authority of the President, the role of the courts, and the meaning of individual clauses. These are important conversations because the framework of our government matters. Especially now.

But before the Constitution gives us a framework, it gives us a compass.

Those five aspirations are not ornamental language placed at the beginning of the Constitution because the founders felt the need to write pretty language. They are the founders telling us that we have a responsibility to take their dream and improve upon it.

Every power granted, every institution created, every office established, every amendment adopted exists to advance those purposes.

The framework tells us how our government operates. The compass tells us where it is supposed to lead.

Perhaps we have spent too much time asking whether a policy is constitutional and too little time asking whether it moves us toward a more perfect Union.

Does it better establish justice?

Does it strengthen domestic tranquility?

Does it provide for the common defense?

Does it promote the general welfare?

Does it secure the blessings of liberty not only for ourselves, but for those who will inherit America after us?

These are not partisan questions. They are constitutional questions in their purest form.

The phrase "a more perfect Union" is one of the most profound acts of humility.

The men who wrote those words were extraordinary, but they were not infallible. They disagreed fiercely with one another. They argued over the nature of representation, the balance of federal and state power, the meaning of liberty, and the demands of justice. They compromised, revised, and debated because they understood something fundamental about self-government. No generation possesses perfect wisdom.

They knew their own limitations. They knew their knowledge was incomplete. They knew their descendants would confront challenges they could not imagine.

And so they did something remarkable.

They refused to write a Constitution that presumed their generation had completed the American experiment. Instead, they wrote one that invited future generations to continue it.

To form a more perfect Union is not a description of what the founders were putting in writing. It was their dream for the future. It is an assignment that we must actively work on before handing it forward.

Every generation inherits our Republic with the same obligation to leave it more just than it was, more peaceful than it was, more secure than it was, more committed to the common good than it was, and more protective of liberty than it was.

That is what it means to be the stewards of a constitutional democracy.

Stewards do not mistake preservation for faithfulness. We preserve what is worthy of preservation. We repair what has been damaged. We strengthen what has grown weak. We adapt to challenges that previous generations could never have anticipated. And when our own time is finished, we hand what we have received to those who come after us in better condition than we found it.

Sometimes we stumble as a nation. Sometimes we fail the assignment. And, as we approach America’s semiquincentennial, it sure does feel like we are failing the assignment.

But the dream is not dead. All hope is not lost. All we must do is look back at the purpose the founders set us to, recommit ourselves to the five aspirations, and keep working on the assignment to form a more perfect Union. It is our responsibility to to leave America a more just, more peaceful, more secure, more prosperous, and more free nation for the next generation.

We are as responsible for the creation of the United States of America as the founders were. Because the act of creating the Union did not end with them, the constitution they wrote, or the amendments that followed. The act of creating the Union is an ongoing assignment that each generation must take up.