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"WE THE PEOPLE . . ."


"THE GENERAL WELFARE . . . BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO
OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY"


PEOPLE.

We are the people—a part of the living constitution. When the people took the trouble to write what they called "The Constitution," they spoke of the "Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." We and our children, that is, are to be eternally free.

The preamble to the Constitution drafted at Philadelphia in 1787 said:

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.

This meant, of course, that the people intended to: (1) Make for themselves one single union, or country; (2) Establish local order and keep out invading armies; (3) Establish government for the general welfare of all citizens; (4) See that all persons had what was generally known as "Liberty," or freedom.

This meant freedom in mind and body, self-respect, dignity. To which we must add the right to work, to eat, to have a roof over our heads, and to send our children to school.

Indeed it is of people, human beings, that we must think as we review the struggles and sacrifices connected with the making of our American Constitution. People, low and high. People, poor and rich. And quite important is it to note that the Constitution adopted at Philadelphia did not merely form a confederation of states, but created an agreement for union of the people. And the people were no mere abstractions living in a void. Like all real people, they lived on the land. People and Land. Land and People. A living constitution must provide for both.