The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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December 14, 2008

Our View: The Bill of Rights worth celebration

Acrimony seems to be the rule these days in Congress and agreement or at least compromise seems to be the exception. With the outlook seeming more dismal each week, it’s important to celebrate a day that commemorates a monumental achievement of our American system of government: Monday is the 217th anniversary of ratification of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution.

It’s worth celebrating because it is one of the few times in our history where a significant number among us — two -hirds of both houses of Congress and three-fourths of the states — agreed on something. But that’s not the only thing to celebrate about the Bill of Rights.

The 100th anniversary or 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights should be celebrated no more or no less than the 217th. Every year the Bill of Rights remains firmly entrenched in our democracy is reason to celebrate.

The Bill of Rights has stood the test of time. Its original purposes to protect and guarantee the basic rights of people in a democracy have largely held up — against enemies with tyranny on their mind and the lust of power in their hearts.

It has served hippies and cowboys. It allows protest and gun ownership — both without fear of government prosecution. The First Amendment specifically prohibits the government from making any law to “abridge” freedom of speech or of the press. The Second Amendment says “the right of people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed.”

Those are two of the major rights that continue to be tested today by various powers. The Bill of Rights also limits other powers of government, such as searches and seizures, the right to trial and rights against cruel and unusual punishment.

James Madison proposed these rights thinking the original Constitution, though a laudable document, didn’t cover the rights of the people who could be subject to the potential of a majority rule government whose power would always tip against the minority.

“Wherever the real power in a government lies, there is the danger of oppression,” Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson in a letter of 1788. That power of the central government created by the Constitution had to be balanced by a Bill of Rights, he argued.

Giving power to the people, Madison suggested, would mitigate its accumulation by a party or “a prince.”

There can be no question that the Bill of Rights, and court interpretations of it, have brought angst and anger to many of the citizens it’s designed to protect. And those battles will continue.

But it has become the best way to resolve differences in America’s continuing battle with itself to maintain a government and culture that resolves its differences on principles of liberty, a government that balances power so no one entity can accumulate it.

Flags flown on Bill of Rights Day should carry meaning every bit as important as flags flown on Independence Day.

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