[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 124 (Thursday, September 17, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10528-S10529]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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          211TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SIGNING OF THE CONSTITUTION

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this is a great date in the history 
not only of the United States, but of all free people, and of all 
people who would be free. On September 17, 1787, a small group of truly 
remarkable Americans gathered to sign one of the greatest documents in 
all of human history, the Constitution of the United States.
  George Washington signed it as the President of the Constitutional 
Convention and deputy from Virginia. The names of other signers are 
familiar to all Americans: Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and 
Alexander Hamilton. Other names should be more familiar than they are, 
names like Morris and Pinkney and Dickinson and Rutledge.
  We owe them a great debt. They have given us a firm foundation on 
which has been built our great and abiding stability. Even when this 
Nation was torn by a terrible fight over the institution of slavery, 
the Constitution allowed us to recover with amazing speed, become one 
Nation again, and avoid the generations of smoldering conflict that 
afflict so many other countries.
  Our Constitution is at once solid and flexible. It can and has been 
amended from time to time to improve the machinery of government and to 
expand the rights that citizens enjoy. Throughout our history we have 
sought to follow Madison's wise advice to limit amendments to ``certain 
great and extraordinary occasions.''
  In Federalist No. 43, James Madison wrote that the Constitution 
establishes a balanced system for amendment, guarding ``equally against 
that extreme facility, which would render the Constitution too mutable, 
and that extreme difficulty, which might perpetuate its discovered 
faults.'' The Constitution is profoundly conservative, in the best 
sense of that word. As Madison expressed in Federalist No. 49:

       [A]s every appeal to the people would carry an implication 
     of some defect in government, frequent appeals would, in 
     great measure, deprive the government of that veneration 
     which time bestows on everything and without which perhaps 
     the wisest and freest governments would not possess the 
     requisite stability.

  It is remarkable that although some 11,000 constitutional amendments 
have been offered in our history, and more than 100 in the 105th 
Congress alone, the elected representatives in Congress and in the 
States have adopted only 17 since the original Bill of Rights. We have 
rejected many amendments that seemed to be good ideas at the time, but 
which on further reflection proved to be unnecessary. We have found 
that we could achieve the same results by statute, or have on sober 
reflection recognized that the amendments would have been mere symbolic 
gestures. We have avoided turning the Constitution into a mere bulletin 
board on which we ``send a message.'' We have respected it and, most 
importantly, we have resisted the temptation to limit the fundamental 
freedoms of Americans. We have rejected the temptation to erode the 
Bill of Rights.
  I cannot ignore the fact that Congress and the States did succumb 
once to what looked like a good idea without carefully considering the 
consequences of their action. The eighteenth amendment imposed 
prohibition and conjured up a swarm of gangsters, bootlegging, and 
wholesale disobedience of the law. It was a bad idea that had to be 
undone by another constitutional amendment. We should regard the 
eighteenth amendment as a reminder that we should go slow, and stop and 
consider carefully all of the implications of any change before we put 
it in the Constitution.
  I submit that the Constitution of the United States is a good 
document--not a sacred text--but as good a law as has been written. 
That is why it has survived as the supreme law of the land with so few 
alterations throughout the last 200 years.
  It has contributed to our success as a Nation by binding us together, 
rather than tearing us apart. It contains the Great Compromise that 
allowed small States and large States to join together in a spirit of 
mutual accommodation and respect. It embodies the protections that make 
real the pronouncements in our historic Declaration of Independence and 
give meaning to our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness.
  The Constitution requires due process and guarantees equal protection 
of

[[Page S10529]]

the law. It protects our freedom of thought and expression, our freedom 
to worship or not as we each choose, and our political freedoms, as 
well. It is the basis for our fundamental right of privacy and for 
limiting government's intrusions and burdens in our lives.
  I oppose what I perceive to be a growing fascination with laying 
waste to our Constitution and the protections that have served us well 
for over 200 years. The First Amendment, separation of powers and power 
of the purse should be supported and defended.
  When we embarked in this Congress, we each swore an oath to support 
and defend the Constitution. That is our duty to those who forged this 
great document, our responsibility to those who sacrificed to protect 
and defend our Constitution, our commitment to our constituents and our 
legacy to those who will succeed us.
  The Framers gave us a remarkable document, an extraordinary system of 
government and protections for our individual liberties. So I celebrate 
this day, not with the parades or fireworks of the Fourth of July, but 
with solemn consideration of how the Framers guaranteed our freedom 
through checks on government power. Most of all, I mark this day with a 
renewed commitment to cherish and to protect this most precious of 
legacies, to resist easy amendments, to resist assaults on our Bill of 
Rights, and to preserve the Constitution for our children and 
grandchildren.

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