Happy Constitution Day!
“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.”
By Duncan Virostko, Museum Assistant
Arthur St. Clair, reviled Governor of the Northwest Territory & later Ohio and staunch Federalist.
Two hundred and thirty seven years ago today, the United States formed its second system of government by ratifying the Constitution. Some thirty one years and two days later, Charles Dunham, the second son of Rufus Dunham was born. And tomorrow, it’ll be my own 30th birthday.
Constitution Day is seldom celebrated, yet it really ought to be. The Constitution is one of our two foundational documents, albeit one more honored in the breach. Yet it’s significance, I believe, tends to be misunderstood. Because it is a legal document, unlike the Declaration of Independence, it is held in high esteem by those who make or adjudicate our laws, and deservedly so. On a day to day basis, questions of a Constitutional nature tend to directly affect everyday Americans more than the principals laid out in the Declaration. Yet it is a mistake to hold the document up as an immutable gospel, as the misinformed so often do.
To put it in more modern terms, the Constitution is the master plan and a set of bylaws which are designed to enact the mission statement which is laid out in the Declaration of Independence. That the Constitution’s design included a mechanism for revision through amendments indicates that the Framers of the document did not view or intend it to be immutable. Naturally, they thought they had created the best system possible after a protracted debate and a series of compromises in order to ratify the document. But they also recognized that the document was not flawless, and that later generations would encounter new situations which they could not anticipate. Thus, they left room and a mechanism for improvement.
For the Western Reserve and it’s early settlers, the improvements gained from the new Constitution were largely economic, and came in the form of a stronger Federal government that was able to raise the taxes necessary to build the roads, canals, and ports they needed to move their produce to the East. Additionally, Article IV of the Constitution helped to ease the fears of new territories around the ambiguities left by the previous Articles of Confederation.
This issue was especially acute in the new Northwest Territory, including the Western Reserve, because those lands were not yet states, and it was not clear what rights new states would be afforded in the federal union prior to the principles laid down in the Constitution. Arthur St Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory prior to Ohio’s statehood was a prime example of the difficulties new territories faced: they existed under the governance of a un-elected leader, who like Sinclair often worked mainly to reward their own political supporters and establish their own power base rather than for the good of the territory.
The new Constitution not only guaranteed states equal representation in the Senate and representation by population in the House of Representatives, it also guaranteed in Article IV that the Federal Government guaranteed a Republican form of government in new states. This would guarantee new states the right to free elections, a legislature, their own courts &c. Critical to the new territories under threat by both indigenous peoples and foreign colonial powers, the new Federal government also pledged to defend states against foes foreign and domestic. Finally, Article IV set forth the principal that states courts must respect each others laws, so the older states courts could not choose to ignore the laws of newly added states on a whim. Practically speaking, this meant that citizens of one state could sue another person in a different state, for any breach of the law committed in the plaintiffs home state: a necessity to doing business across state lines. It also forced courts in different states to admit lawyers who did not reside within the state, so long as they had based the state bar, allowing lawyers to represent clients in multiple states.
In 1804, Ohio would become a full state, and once no longer a territory would see a boom in emigration from the older Eastern states. The new state was founded largely on New England principals and traditions, but it’s vast unsettled lands offered new opportunities for those looking to establish themselves in a new land and raise their social and economic standing. None of that would have been possible without a United States which was no only formed into a “more perfect union”, but one which fostered mutual respect between new and old states and guaranteed new states the same rights as older members of that union. The principals laid out in Article IV laid the groundwork for the continued expansion of the United States, and the democratic form of government. As we celebrate this often overlooked day, let us appreciate not only the role these changes in government set in motion for Ohio, but also take inspiration that even the framers of the momentous document saw room for improvement, and strive to continue to improve our system of government secure in the knowledge that this was their intent.
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