We the People of the United States, in Order 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, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. - Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America
Today, September 17, is Constitution Day, commemorating the signing of the U.S. Constitution by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. And as of this morning there are 17 early subscribers to this newsletter, so on the basis of that numerical coincidence I decided just now to send out a first issue a little ahead of schedule.
First, thank you for subscribing to Daily Conquest. This newsletter is very much a work in progress — I’ve not quite settled on what the format or frequency will be. In large part, I’ll look to Faithful Readers like you let me know what you would find most interesting and worthwhile. For at least the first few weeks or months, we’ll be experimenting. So please do let me know by comment or email what you find interesting or useful and what you don’t.
I don’t have an elaborate statement of purpose for Daily Conquest. On the Welcome page that you have probably seen I wrote: “Daily Conquest will cover culture, politics, public policy, and law from, I hope, a more thoughtful perspective than we get from the click-driven corporate media. We’ll try to ignore the screaming headlines, shouted insults, and the knife fight atmosphere that permeates many online discussions of public affairs and dive a little deeper into what’s happening and why.” That’s what I have for now, though it is a) very broad and b) more a statement of what Daily Conquest isn’t than what it is.
One of my pandemic pastimes has been memorizing the Preamble to the Constitution.1 (Well, rememorizing it, since the Schoolhouse Rock version of the Preamble is pretty deeply embedded in my memory cells.) The Preamble is a precise statement of purpose for the Constitution, and for the government it establishes. You might think of it as America’s mission statement.
In the early 2000s (the Oughties?) “mission statements” for companies were much in vogue. Every company, large or small, had one or appointed committees (or hired consultants) to draft one. These mission statements were supposed to guide and inspire employees and customers alike — but often amounted to overly convoluted empty pabulum or corporate gobbledygook slapped onto coffee mugs and mouse pads for the workers and then forgotten. As one writer on the subject put it, too many mission statements are “blatantly self-focused, self-serving, undifferentiated, and ultimately uninspiring.”
Not to say there aren’t some truly mission-driven companies and other organizations out there — there are many. But for many other companies the “mission statement” fad was the Macarena of corporate culture.
Yet, I digress. You get the point. There are a lot of badly drafted mission statements floating around in the world. There are also some excellent ones, and the Preamble is one of the best and most important. It is simple, focused, precise, and inspiring. It shapes our understanding of the substantive text of the Constitution that follows. James Madison called the Preamble the “Key to the Constitution”. So let’s take a look at it.
We the People of the United States
The delegates to the Philadelphia Convention were sent as representatives of their respective states to draft amendments to the then-in-force Articles of Confederation. But they decided that tinkering with the Articles would not be sufficient to secure the nation’s future and that a blank page fresh start was needed. The Constitution they ultimately presented was written in the name of not the states, but “We the People”. And not “We the People” of the various individual states, but “We the People of the United States” as a whole. This was a subtle but vital shift.
We often overlook that the Constitution wasn’t handed down from a mountain. The Constitution comes from us — We the People of the United States.
in Order to form a more perfect Union,
Notice the Framers didn’t purport to have created or aspire to create a “perfect” union, only a more perfect one. Like the speed of light, perfection in human affairs is something we can move closer to, but never reach. The Framers were, most of them, wise enough statesmen to recognize that perfection, particularly perfection in government, is not something human beings can achieve.
All we can do is move towards something more perfect. We can dedicate our efforts to making our community, our country, and ourselves better today than we were yesterday — while maintaining the humility to remember that perfection is always beyond our grasp. (This is part of what the Daily Conquest tagline “Conquer the Day” is meant to convey. Today is the only day you can effect, so make good use of it.)
The Framers implicitly — and in some cases explicitly2 — rejected utopian thinking. They designed a system of limited government and of check and balances because they were well aware of the temptations of some individual or faction attempting to use the power of government to enforce their vision of a perfect society. They knew that the perfection never arrives, only tyranny and blood.
establish Justice,
I’ll only note here my maxim that Justice needs no adjectives.
Adding modifiers to justice almost invariably makes it something less than just.
insure domestic Tranquility,
By 1860, the domestic tranquility the Framers hoped to insure had frayed to the breaking point. The nation split and a bloody civil war ensued — mainly because a solution to the problem of slavery was beyond the Framers’ grasp in 1787. The compromises of the Constitution bought time for a peaceful resolution of that blot on America’s character — another seventy years or so — but subsequent generations also proved unequal to the task and slavery had to be ended by force of arms.
Certainly, we have had many other internal conflicts, divisions, and upheavals since then. Some fear the America of 2021 is on course for a new split, even a new civil war.
I do not. I believe the system established by the Constitution — damaged though it is these days — can still self-correct and still gives us the tools we need to insure domestic tranquility if we will use them. Topic for another day.
provide for the common defence,
We’ve done pretty well on this one. Aside from the British invasion in the War of 1812, no enemy power has set foot on our shores with anything beyond a hit and run sneak attack — which they invariably come to regret.
Providing for the common defense (I’m going to go with our modern spelling) is one thing our government has, overall, done quite well. Where we get in trouble is when we venture abroad without a clear focus or on ill-defined, ill-advised missions. But at home, so far, we’ve done well.
(We can talk about the military industrial complex, the cultural rot in our military, the surveillance state, and the corruption of the intelligence community another time.)
promote the general Welfare,
America is still the land of opportunity, and the wealthiest, most prosperous nation in history. Millions around the world still risk their lives to come here seeking freedom and the chance to build better lives for themselves and their families. That’s a pretty solid endorsement of the Constitution’s success in promoting the general welfare.
and secure the Blessings of Liberty
What are the Blessings of Liberty? I have my own ideas, which we might discuss another day. But I’m asking you, Faithful Reader. What, to you, are the Blessings of Liberty? Let me know! We’ll come back to this.
to ourselves and our Posterity,
The six broad purposes of the Constitution set forth in the preceding clauses are undertaken not only for the benefit of the founding generation, but for their children and their children’s children, and all their posterity down to us and beyond. That’s the inspiring part. They were drafting a Constitution to establish a government that could achieve these purposes for generations to come. It was meant to endure. And so it has.
Whether it endures into the future is up to us. As President Reagan said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
One of my goals with Daily Conquest is for us to spend some time examining the important features of our Constitution so that we can then use that framework to respond to the issues and debates and controversies that surround us, that shout at us, every day.
Many of the people screaming the loudest seem to have the least understanding of the proper purposes and limitations of government. (Or maybe they do understand but want do away with those limits in the name of their vision of perfection…) So we’ll come back to this.
I believe the Constitution has, for the most part, achieve the purposes set out in the Preamble. If you agree or disagree, please let me know. I’m not here to pontificate, only to share my thoughts, and engage yours so that we can all be better, more thoughtful, more effective citizens and do our part to preserve the freedom handed down to us.
Conquer the Day!
Thank you for being here for the first edition of Daily Conquest. I hope you’ll take a few moments today to think about the Constitution and what it means for us today.3 If you’re a subscriber reading this on the website you can post a comment below. You can also reply to the email version or write to DailyConquest@substack.com
Finally, if you enjoyed this post, please click the heart icon and please feel free to forward it to anyone who might be interested. Thanks again for reading — Conquer the Day!
If you recite the Preamble while washing your hands, that’s the perfect length of time to wash your hands.
“If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.” — James Madison, Federalist No. 51
Faithful Readers outside the United States are excused from this assignment, though your thoughts and perspective from a not-American point of view are most welcome too!