[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 148 (Wednesday, September 17, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8903-S8904]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CONSTITUTION DAY 2008

  Mr. CORNYN. I have some remarks, this being Constitution Day, that I 
want to make in closing. It was 221 years ago today when the delegates 
of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia completed their work; 
39 of them signed it and gave us the very Government we have come to 
know, we have come to love, and, sometimes, there are those who say 
they have come to loathe it.
  But today, we celebrate the very fact that we live in a country where 
people have the freedom of speech, that we have our political rights to 
petition Government, where Government's power is acknowledged to come 
from the governed, ``we the People'' as Lincoln said, ``Government of 
the people, by the people and for the people.'' It is not the decision 
of a small group of people here in Washington, DC that somehow has to 
be fed to us like castor oil and we have to take it. This literally is 
a government of the people representing all 300 million of us who live 
in this country that was created that day by that Constitution.
  Mr. President, it was on this day, September 17, 1787, that the 
delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia completed 
their work. Thirty-nine of them signed the U.S. Constitution, setting 
up the government system that we have come to know, love, and sometimes 
loathe.
  As Senators, we have sworn an oath to protect and defend the 
Constitution

[[Page S8904]]

of the United States. This is a duty and a responsibility that does not 
discriminate based on our party ideology. Still, it is our mutual love 
for and defense of the Constitution that often provokes our most 
vigorous debates in this chamber. This spirited debate is vital to 
liberty and the continued survival of our Nation.
  If you read Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention, you 
will see that the delegates themselves engaged in a lively debate about 
how to best implement the principles of liberty, equality, and justice 
established in the Declaration of Independence. Years later, during the 
jubilee celebration of the Constitution, John Quincy Adams said, ``The 
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States 
are parts of one consistent whole, founded upon one and the same theory 
of government.''
  With population growth, increasing diversity, agricultural and 
economic development and massive technological advancement, our Nation 
has changed tremendously in the 221 years since the Constitution was 
signed. Yet, despite these changes, there remains a fundamental 
consistency in human nature.
  James Madison expressed it best in the Federalist Papers, Number 51: 
``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 in the next place 
oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, 
the primary control on the government; but experience has taught 
mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.''
  You see, we are indebted to the Founding Fathers for their wisdom and 
foresight. They understood that human nature would be unlikely to 
change, and that 18th century and contemporary American policymakers 
would be pressured to promote policy solutions that may not serve the 
public interest.
  According to Madison, ``Complaints are everywhere heard from our most 
considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and 
private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments 
are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts 
of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not 
according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, 
but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. . 
. . These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness 
and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public 
administrations.''
  Madison was concerned about the effect of special interest groups on 
the policy process. In Federalist 10 he wrote, ``The latent causes of 
faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere 
brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different 
circumstances of civil society. . . .''
  ``So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual 
animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the 
most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle 
their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But 
the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and 
unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are 
without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those 
who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like 
discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a 
mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, 
grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into 
different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The 
regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the 
principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party 
and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the 
government.''
  In a pure democracy, Madison argues, ``A common passion or interest 
will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a 
communication and concert result from the form of government itself; 
and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker 
party or an obnoxious individual. . . . Such democracies have ever been 
spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found 
incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have 
in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in 
their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species 
of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a 
perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same 
time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, 
their opinions, and their passions.''
  Since it is impossible to force everyone to share the same opinion 
and intensity of opinion, Madison seeks to control the effects of 
factions by creating a republican form of government.
  ``The two great points of difference between a democracy and a 
republic are,'' he writes, ``First, the delegation of the government, 
in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; 
secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of 
country, over which the latter may be extended''.
  ``The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine 
and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a 
chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true 
interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice 
will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial 
considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the 
public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be 
more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people 
themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may 
be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of 
sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, 
first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the 
people''.
  Madison was skeptical that elected representatives would always act 
in the public interest. ``Enlightened statesmen will not always be at 
the helm,'' he wrote in Federalist 10.
  Today, we have only to see the parade of huge spending bills that 
find their way to the floor to know that it is a herculean task to 
whet, much less control the appetites of the hundreds of organized 
interest groups who want their piece of the federal pie made with tax 
dollars collected from hard working American families.
  The entitlement mentality of many of these organized groups, many of 
which cannot lay claim to a substantial number of members, has 
pressured an all too receptive Congress to grow the size of government, 
increase spending to new heights, while we ignore insolvency of large 
entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, and hope that 
our children and grandchildren will bail us out for our bad decisions.
  In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution that 
establishes a system of separate institutions that share policymaking 
and political power. This was a clear effort to control the effects of 
factions and to guard against despotic rulers.
  The public elections established by the Constitution encourage the 
electorate to select their representatives wisely.
  For those of us privileged to be elected by the people, we have a 
sworn obligation to protect and defend the Constitution and to show 
ourselves worthy of this great trust.
  On any given day, not just anniversary dates like today, it is 
something we ought to think more about.
  I see my colleague from Louisiana here. I am going to yield the rest 
of our time that we have in morning business to him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska.) The Senator from 
Louisiana is recognized.

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