In Order to Form a More Perfect Union

“In order to form a more perfect union…” Drafted by James Madison, that was and is our mission statement found in the Constitution forming the United States. As we approach the 143rd celebration of our independence from a country governed by a king, we might want to take note of Madison’s text. He didn’t say we were forming a perfect union, he only said we were aspiring to a more perfect union. And so we are.

We’ve done a pretty job of it, and on July 4th, we ought to celebrate that fact. The United States was the first country to choose not to be governed by a king. Since kings were supposedly deriving their right to rule from the will of God, we rejected George III, or any king or queen, to govern us. The world had had kings and queens since 3,000 BCE, i.e., for 5,000 years. And, while they could be overthrown, the idea that that wasn’t the way a country should be governed was huge. When some poor fool told George Washington he could be king, Washington rapped him on the head and said, “Dude, you weren’t listening!”

We spelled out what we wanted, first and foremost to “establish Justice.” We also wanted to insure “domestic Tranquility” and “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” 

We’ve done a lot since then. Using our unique freedoms we created free enterprise, free speech, religious freedom, the right to assemble, and fair trials. We abolished slavery and passed the Civil Rights Act. We invented cars, airplanes, submarines, cell phones, the internet, jazz, rock and roll, Broadway musicals, skyscrapers, light bulbs, mass production, the Super Soaker, Barbie, Lego’s, Tinker Toys, Silly Putty, Mr. Potato Head, microwave ovens, planetariums, televisions, ways to capture electricity and nuclear power, and the Panama Canal. We also created All in the Family, the Simpsons, Shaft, Game of Thrones, Casablanca, Gone With The Wind and, Steven Spielberg’s tour de force, Used Cars.

We shouldn’t forget U.S inventors also created artificial pacemakers, gas masks, innumerable vaccines, anesthetics, MRIs, mapping the human genome and organ transplants. 

But we’re far from perfect. We go off the rails from time to time (and now appears to be one of those times) but we always come back. 

How do we come back? First, we have the freedom to elect hundreds of thousands of presidents, governors, mayors, city councilmen, representatives, senators, judges, school boards, union presidents, heads of neighborhood associations, heads of parties, school presidents, club presidents – all of whom campaign to steer us in a better direction than the last dope. On balance, they succeed. 

But what really brings us around to creating a more perfect union is the multitude. Yes, we are easily persuadable to follow the next trend for health, equality, investments, fashions, politics, science, and consumer products but if they don’t work, they don’t last. Eventually, we get it right. We change our minds, our votes, our support and our expenditures. Bad ideas, like communism, stick around and emerge like cicadas every once in a while but that’s just a part of being free to think and express yourself. 

More evidence of what is worth celebrating came to me from a friend from Sweden. He once asked me about serving in the Army (I fought in Vietnam). He said, “No one from Sweden would ever fight for their country.” And yet, we have volunteers who fight for other people to be free, and who may die doing it. 

So we keep inventing and voting and changing our minds and trying out new ideas and rejecting most of them. Unfortunately, today, much of the press, rather than acting as a corrective, seems to be pushing us to extremes. The old adage was, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Today, it’s more like “If it’s outrageous, it’s on the front pages.”

Nevertheless, I view all of this as all of us trying to get closer to forming a more perfect union. It’s not going to be the radical transformation envisioned by some and we have to constantly be on guard for that. Maybe a perfect union isn’t possible. But for me, like the Notre Dame football player George Gipp said to his coach Knute Rockne from his hospital bed in 1920, if we do ever do make it perfect, ”I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock. But I’ll know about it, and I’ll be happy.”