'To form a more perfect union'

America has long forgotten the vision that compelled our founders to gather in Philadelphia – "...to form a more perfect union." It was a vision of free people, governing themselves.

The quest for political power has taken precedence over the vision of a more perfect union. The purpose of self-governance – "to ... secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity ..." – has been discarded by the politically powerful. The new vision is political power; the new purpose is to control society by limiting individual liberty and denying it to our posterity.

For more than a generation, children have been denied the opportunity to learn how the blessings of liberty originate and how to secure those blessings for themselves and their posterity by limiting the power of government. Instead, they learn that the purpose of government is to decide what individuals may – and may not – do, and that compliance with government mandates is the source of security.

Raw political power, exercised through the force of government, is responsible for transforming the values and attitudes of a generation of Americans who have lost sight of our founders' vision.

The government's education initiatives, for more than a decade, have systematically expunged references to individual achievement, excellence and liberty. Children are taught that the prize is not in winning, but in playing; that individual excellence is detrimental to the comity of the group.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires that the Center for Civic Education provide the Civics curriculum taught in public schools. What is being taught is a far cry from the values and principles captured in the Constitution, crafted by those Americans who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787.

From kindergarten to college, students are prepared for "global citizenship" through lessons that demean national sovereignty in favor of international acceptance. Children are no longer taught the value of representative government, exercised by individuals freely elected from an arena of conflicting ideas. They are taught, instead, that consensus is more efficient and that political power determines who controls the consensus process, the agenda and the outcome.

If the blessings of liberty are to be secured for ourselves and our posterity, Americans, and the politicians they elect, must return to the quest of forming a more perfect union, rather than the quest for political power. We must rediscover the vision of our founders.

The National Center for Constitutional Studies has prepared a fantastic two-hour movie of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It dramatizes the debates over how the new government should be formed. Through an excellent cast of characters, the various points of view are illustrated. The arguments, often passionate, crystalize the issues and demonstrate how men of goodwill were able to find compromise.

Every American, and certainly every school student, should see this powerful movie. The center has also developed a five-segment presentation especially for use in schools, accompanied by a teacher's guide.

Congress has designated Sept. 17, the day the Constitution was signed by the founders, as "Citizenship Day," and Public Law 108-447 requires that learning experiences about the Constitution be made available to students on this day. President Bush has designated the week of Sept. 17-23 as "Constitution Week." Students should be learning what the Constitution says and why it is important.

The Constitution evolved as it did as the result of conflicting ideas being hammered into compromise by reason, common sense and a common goal. Students need to understand why the founders provided two legislative chambers, not simply that there are two chambers. Students need to understand why there is an electoral college, not simply that there is one. Students need to understand why the Constitution for the United States of America created the best system of self-governance ever devised.

Progress toward a more perfect union should not depend upon which political party is in power; it should depend upon the power of the arguments offered in support a particular idea. Persuasion should not be imposed by political bosses; it should be informed by reasoned debate.

The founders created a magnificent structure. It is the responsibility of each succeeding generation to understand it, defend and protect it, and to make sure that our posterity is not denied the blessings of liberty.

This generation is dangerously close to allowing the bright light of liberty to be extinguished by letting the principles of freedom enshrined in our Constitution be forgotten.

America has long forgotten the vision that compelled our founders to gather in Philadelphia

In my opinion, the Constitution's 16th and then 17th amendment created political agendas that would evidentially end the framers vision for the nation.

The wisdom of the words of the ages should be heeded and here are samples of words that I think were meant to impart wisdom. How much of America do recognize in these words.

Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” - Thomas Jefferson

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State lives at the expense of everyone."--Frederic Bastiat

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." James Madison, 1794

"The Republic may not give wealth or happiness, she has not promised these. It is the freedom to pursue these, not their realization, that we claim. But if she does not make the emigrant happy or prosperous, this she can do and does do for everyone, she makes him a citizen, a man." Andrew Carnegie

The real freedom of any individual can always be measured by the amount of responsibility, which he must assume for his own welfare and security. Robert Welch – Author

"The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." Ronald Reagan, 1964

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powell, anxiously awaiting the results, pressed Benjamin Franklin as he emerged from Independence Hall. She asked, "Well doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin quickly replied, "A republic, if you can keep it."

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1787

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin

"On every question of construction [of the Constitution], let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invent against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." - Tacitus, Roman Senator and Historian (A.D. c.56 - c. 115)

"If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law." -- Winston Churchill

Government means politics, and interference by government carries with it always the implication of coercion. We may accept the expanding power of bureaucrats so long as we bask in the friendly smile. But it is a dangerous temptation. Today politics may be our friend, and tomorrow we may be its victims. Owen Young – Author

I can find nothing in writing that better describes the plight America has bestowed upon itself than this observation by Teddy Roosevelt.

"The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the Republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing. Teddy Roosevelt on the Fall of the Republic

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector: Plato: Ancient Greek philosopher (428/427-348/347 B.C.)

"If you protect a man from folly, you will soon have a nation of fools." -- William Penn

"Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good, will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C.S. Lewis

"When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated." – Thomas Jefferson

Optima corrupta pessima. Latin proverb. "The best things, corrupted, become the worst."

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