Editorial: The Preamble tells our constitutional creation story

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, regrettably often overlooked by the citizenry, provides an elegant summation of our nation’s constitutional creation story. It speaks of the work of the sovereign people. It represents a direct act of legislation, and introduces and forms part of the supreme law of the land, distinct from any and all future laws that will be passed under its authority.

The Preamble is a historical and legal colossus. In the Pennsylvania State Ratifying Convention, James Wilson, a leading delegate to the Constitutional Convention, quoted from the essence of the Preamble: “We the people of the United States … do ordain and establish this Constitution.” Wilson was trumpeting to the world, the groundbreaking significance of the Preamble: We the people are ordaining, that is constituting or creating the fundamental law that will govern the United States. The assertion by the American people of a right to create a government of their choosing was unprecedented in a world dominated for centuries by monarchs, dictators and tyrants.

The framers were not required to wring concessions from British kings and nobles, as their forbears did in drafting the Magna Carta or the English Declaration of Rights. In contrast, Americans were unshackled in the drafting of their Constitution, including a Preamble that stated their ambitious goals. Free from the coercive force and influence of a kingship or tyrant, able to focus on the incorporation into the Constitution their governing values, their preferences for power structures, and their choices for allocating powers to both the national and state governments.

The Preamble’s reference to the ordainment of the Constitution was a direct reference to the ratification of the Constitution by the people, an act that conferred authority upon the Constitution. The proposed Constitution could not will itself into existence; as James Madison explained, it had no life until it was ratified by the citizenry.

The Preamble boldly declared that the very rationale behind the creation of the Constitution was to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense and secure the blessings of liberty to “ourselves and our Posterity.” These stated ends of government, what Edmund Randolph of Virginia called a “philosophy of the ends of government and human polities,” reflected the founders’ familiarity with a version of the Social Contract Doctrine presented by the 17th Century English philosopher, John Locke.

Americans understood the doctrine to imply a voluntary association of individuals, a social compact by which the “whole” people covenant with each other so that all the people shall be governed by the same laws for the common good. This compact was not between the states; after all, states were not parties to the approval of the Constitution. The Constitution, as the founders were fond of saying, referred to “We the people, not we the states.”

The drafting of the Preamble throughout the summer of 1787 produced no great surprises. Both the Virginia and New Jersey plans featured a modest Preamble, expected perhaps because they canvassed and, in many ways, promoted provisions of various state constitutions, several of which included a preamble to promote security and the general welfare. Alexander Hamilton’s plan, which was not formally presented to the Convention, also included a preamble.

The framers’ work on the draft of what became the final version of the Preamble resembled the process that characterized work on the other provisions of the Constitution. What was missing in the discussions of the Preamble, however, were sharp differences of opinion, moments of intense debate. Certainly this provision generated no threats of walkouts from southern delegates, as did their objections to the evolution of the treaty-making power.

The Committee of the Whole, that is the daily meetings of the Constitutional Convention, spent much of the summer discussing various provisions of the proposed Constitution, including a preamble. Again, there was virtually no dissent among the delegates. By August 6, the delegates had dispatched the draft to the Committee of Detail to round some corners and rough edges with the hope of making more progress. The focus, to that point, was on the inclusion of language that the people would “ordain” this Constitution, and that the preservation of the common defense and liberty should be included.

The Committee of Detail worked over the draft for roughly three weeks and then sent it onto the Committee of Style, which included such heavyweights as Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Rufus King and Gouverneur Morris. Scholars agree that the Preamble features the elegant, flowing handwriting of Morris, as does the rest of the Constitution.

The Preamble should not be a forgotten part of our Constitution. On the contrary, it is poetry, while the rest of the Constitution is mere prose. Indeed, its elegance and lofty ambitions are inspiring and accessible to us, anytime, particularly in dark political waters when we may need to be reminded of the possibilities of a “more perfect union.”

Adler is president of The Alturas Institute, created to advance American Democracy through promotion of the Constitution, civic education, equal protection and gender equality.

Send questions about the Constitution to Dr. Adler at [email protected] and he will attempt to answer them in subsequent columns.

This column is provided by the North Dakota Newspaper Association and Humanities North Dakota.