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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 07/01
The Constitution: Any Present Value?
Lowell Weicker *
September 18, 1996
Good afternoon, and thank you very much for allowing me to be on your campus for a few minutes
By way of beginning my remarks, I’d like to point out the obvious. The constitution was written by the wealthy and the powerful, those who owned the land. Yet what they wrote was directly against their self interest. And therein lies the lesson for today as we enact legislation and set policy. Are we doing such for ourselves or are we doing it for future generations?
Had those men (unfortunately no women at that time) written the document for themselves, we’d still be a nation run by a handful of Virginia planters and Boston businessmen. But because they wrote what they did, 250 million of us, to a greater or lesser degree, enjoy a quality of life that far surpasses anything that the framers themselves enjoyed. The Constitution today is really all but forgotten on a daily basis. Maybe "forgotten" is the wrong word, because indeed it has become the politician’s trash basket for every difficult issue that requires either money, effort, or change of lifestyle in order to be resolved.
What am I talking about when it comes to our Constitution and the attempts to change it? Balance the budget. Now ladies and gentlemen, there is no problem with balancing the budget. Balance it. That probably means you have to cut spending, it probably means you have to raise taxes, it probably means you have to cut back on entitlements. But all the power to do these things is there right now. And I’m talking local, state, and federal. It’s in the power of the executive and the legislative.
I remember, when I served in the United States Senate, Ronald Reagan use to constantly send us unbalanced budgets, while being for a "balance the budget" constitutional amendment. And that’s pretty much been the history of the matter, through other presidents and other legislatures.
To hear any president of the United States or any legislative leader call for a "balance the budget" constitutional amendment is for me no different than the quarterback of my alma mater, Yale University, leaving the field of play during a football game, going up in the stands, and yelling, "We want a touchdown!" No, I don’t think we need any constitutional amendment to balance the budget. We need the will and the courage and the vision to balance the budget.
As to our patriotism, we don’t need constitutional amendments. May I point out that the best kind of patriotism has nothing to do with saying the Pledge of Allegiance or singing the National Anthem at the top of your lungs. It has to do with what each one of us does on behalf of our nation. That’s a patriotism I understand.
Prayers in school–are they supposed to be a substitute for investing in our educational system? Hopefully, say a prayer and everything will be all right as far as the student is concerned? Or is it going to require an investment of resources and an effort on the part of the parents to participate in the process of education? No prayer in school constitutional amendment is going to do the job that needs to be done so desperately in education in this country.
The object for leaders over the years has been to stick it to the Constitution and make everyone feel good, with no real result achieved and no real price paid. As I see our treatment of the Constitution today, the Constitution being so vast in its promise, I think about the oceans of this world. A good portion of my career in the Congress was spent expanding NOAA, the National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration. I realize the promise that the oceans hold for this world both in terms of energy and in terms of food. And yet, I also understand how we have viewed these vast bodies of water as being so vast that we can throw anything into them and they will be OK. And we’re just now learning that it’s not OK, that pollution is cutting down on the time that resource is going to be available to us. Just so, our constitutional heritage and our future is being dissipated in these runs at the Constitution to amend it or dilute it. There are consequences.
I want to comment in this regard upon how I view our nation. Nobody’s ever going to finish it. The never-finished ideal of the Constitution is going to require each generation to make its own contribution. It can’t become a political dumping ground for a nation that prefers automatic pilots to material sacrifice and intellectual elbow grease.
I see one celebration after another honoring the past. We’ve become a "tunes of glory" generation. We like to celebrate the past rather than to build the future. It’s not just a piece of paper that’s impervious to abuse. We’ve been stripped of our visions and dreams as daily the Constitution is used as a partisan mop or a national policy sop. Yes, they hurt, these runs at the Constitution. And we’re the less today, each one of us, because of these political incursions.
One of my favorite plays has always been Robert Bolt’sA Man For All Seasons, the story of Sir Thomas More. There comes that scene in the play where a man who is probably in the pay of More’s enemies has been listening at the door to the conversations going on within. All of a sudden he knows he’s been discovered, and he starts to run away. Sir Thomas’ son-in-law says, "Arrest him." And Sir Thomas’ wife says, "Yes!" More responds "For what?" Roper, his son-in-law, "For libel; he’s a spy." And Sir Thomas’ wife says, "He is! Arrest him!"
And More’s daughter says, "Father, that man’s bad." And More responds, "There is no law against that." Roper says, "There is! God’s law!" And More says, "Then God can arrest him." Roper says, "Sophistication upon sophistication!" And More replies, " No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what’s legal not what’s right. And I’ll stick to what’s legal." Roper, "Then you set man’s law above God’s!" More says, "No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact–I’m not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong which you find such plain sailing, I can’t navigate. I’m no voyager. But in the thickets in the law, oh, there I’m a forester. I doubt if there’s a man alive who could follow me there, thank
God. . ."
Alice, his wife, says, "While you talk, he’s gone!" And More says, "And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!" Roper says, "So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!" And More answers, "Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?" Roper says, "I’d cut down every law in England to do that!" More gets up, excited, and he says, "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you–where would you hide Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast–man’s laws not God’s–and if you cut them down–and you’re just the man to do it–d’ you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil the benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake."
That’s what the Constitution is all about. It’s about each one of us. And those of us who stand by as it's cut down diminish ourselves.
I’d like to use religious freedom as an illustration of the abuse to which the Constitution and our daily lives are subject. I think this an especially timely aspect of the Constitution to discuss seeing the great religious fervor that is overtaking those who would be in the business of politics or those who would influence the business of politics. That is the portion of the Constitution where Congress shall make no law (First Amendment) respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. As Chief Justice Wade paraphrased it, "We will not tolerate governmentally established religion, or government interference with religion."
Why this part of the Constitution? Why this aspect of the First Amendment? Did it relate to our European experience as most Americans think? In other words, that we were fleeing persecutions in Europe and, therefore, we wrote this into our Constitution? No, no. It was the American experience that brought this about. The establishment of religion in each one of the states. State after state started to replicate exactly what had happened in Europe. My own state of Connecticut–Congregationalism became the official religion of the state of Connecticut. And believe me, people suffered and died because of that fact. It was Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Baptists in Danbury that established the concept of separation of church and state. He said it was the purpose of the First Amendment to build a wall of separation between church and state.
Now back in 1785, there was an attempt in Virginia to establish a provision for teachers of the Christian religion. It basically amounted to an assessment to go ahead and subsidize their teaching. It was in response to that proposed law in Virginia that James Madison wrote his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments. If ever I had to ask each of you to read one document that fully describes the basis for our First Amendment religious freedom rights, read it. I will read a few sections of it today. It’s as applicable in 1996 as it was in 1785.
Madison stated, "We remonstrate against the said Bill . . . Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, that Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence. The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow dictates of other men. It is unalienable also, because what is here right towards men, is the duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him."
Madison goes on to say, "Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows the dependence on the powers of this world. It is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence."
And Madison goes on. He says, "Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility and the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. Inquire of the teachers of Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest lustre; those of every sect, point to the ages prior to its incorporation with Civil policy."
And then lastly, "Because the proposed establishment is a departure from the generous policy, which, offering an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion, promised a lustre to our country, and an accession to the number of its citizens. What a melancholy mark is the Bill of sudden degeneracy? Instead of holding forth an Asylum to the persecuted, it is itself a signal of persecution. It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance."
Mark Twain also comments along this line. In the chapter "Beginnings of Civilization" in Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court he says, "Everybody could be any kind of a Christian he wanted to; there was perfect freedom in that matter. But I confined public religious teaching to the churches and the Sunday-schools, permitting nothing of it in my other educational buildings. I could have given my own sect the preference and made everybody a Presbyterian without any trouble, but that would of been to affront a law of human nature: spiritual wants and instincts are as various in the human family as our physical appetites, complexions and features, and a man is only at his best, morally, when he is equipped with the religious garment whose color and shape and size most nicely accommodate themselves to the spiritual complexion, angularities, and stature of the individual who wears it; and besides, I was afraid of a united Church. It makes a mighty power, the mightiest conceivable, and then when it by and by gets into selfish hands, as it always is bound to do, it means death to human liberty and paralysis to human thought."
This is some of the background of this First Amendment that is so precious to us, and which everybody disregards in the political babble of these times. What was devised by Madison and Jefferson and others has given to the United States the greatest religious peace and freedom ever experienced by any nation in the history of the world. This was the great contribution of the United States to government. And not to believe me, but take a look at our history and see what has happened. Statistics tell the story. Now, it’s not to say that obviously during the course of our history there hasn’t been discrimination against Jew, and Catholic, and Mormon. But then, all of them have grown way beyond their dreams, as the Constitution has protected this garden of religious liberty. And one roll call of religions flourishing in the States today gives ample testimony to the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the First Amendment.
Now there are those who would disregard history, ancient and current, to alter the First Amendment. I went through this exercise in 1984 as some tried to get an amendment calling for prayers in school. We won that argument on the floor of the United States Senate. When I say won, we won because the so-called religionists didn’t get the super majority that was required. The majority thought it was perfectly all right to tinker around with that First Amendment. And after months and months of debate, we finally wore them out, and they went away. I felt at that time, they’ll be back–and they are. It’s now your turn to go ahead and defend that aspect of our Constitution.
But in 1984, what I had to do was to use articles from our history, such as the Memorial and Remonstrance, which I just read to you, and other historical documents to defend leaving the First Amendment intact. But here we are in 1996, and if I were on the floor of the United States Senate today, I wouldn’t have to use historical documents to prove the sagacity of separation of church and state. All I would have to say is open the window! Look at Bosnia, look at the Middle East, look at Northern Ireland. Those aren’t National Football League franchises they’re fighting over. But in spite of that mayhem, death, and misery, there are those who want to put a toe in that water.
Again, listen to Madison’s words. "Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. [This is the subsidizing of Christian teachers.] We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait until usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?"
To take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties, and yet we’re going though experiment after experiment on this particular item. We have thrived as a government of laws, and nowhere has this been more evident than in the Constitution. And nowhere has that been more evident than in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Everybody in the United States of America has the right to find their own way to God, or for those who so choose, no way.
Whether as public servant or citizen, our job–yours and mine–is to see that where there is ignorance, enlightenment comes forth in terms of education and the funding of education–that is a proper activity. Where there is illness, there is going to be care for the citizen–that is our duty. Where there is homelessness, there will be shelter. Where there is violence, whether it’s the violence of hopelessness or the violence of bigotry, we go after it, and we supply solutions for it. That is our job, whether as public office holder or citizen. Where there is poverty, there will be opportunity. These are the matters which are the proper causes for government, and for those who vote the policies and people of government.
As many of you know, I spent good portions of my Senatorial career enacting into law most of the laws that sit on the books today that relate to the disabled of this country. The Education For All Handicapped Children Act, Birth to Three, Americans with Disabilities Act–these are a major part of my life’s work and the life’s work of many others in the Senate and in the House. The point I’m trying to make here is that I would talk to groups around the country and would say the principle disability is not what God hath wrought, but what man hath wrought. That is the disability. And the job that we embarked on was to spend our lifetime undoing that disability.
That, I think, sets into context the difference between those who carry forth the word of God, and those of us in the laity, in citizenry, in public office holding, who have a job to do. Who knows? Maybe the one true faith has yet to be articulated. The task of America is to assure that even if in no other place in the world, that articulation can happen, will happen, in these United States. That is the promise of the Constitution of the United States, not the promise of God. And it is a pledge far surpassing any election politics.
Thank you very much.
Endnotes
Note *: Lowell Weicker began his political career in 1962 when he was elected to Connecticut's House of Representatives. After serving three terms in the State House, he was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1968, representing his state's fourth district. In 1970 Weicker moved on to the U.S. Senate as a liberal Republican. He served three terms before resigning to run for Governor of Connecticut on the independent Connecticut Party ticket. Known as a legislator of strong convictions willing to stand alone on issues in which he truly believed, he was awarded the 1988 Wayne Morse Political Integrity Award, the Albert Lasker Public Service Award, and a 1992 Profiles in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. As a member of the U.S. Senate, Weicker was one of the principal authors of the Americans with Disabilities Act and worked on behalf of the National Institutes of Health and the country's medical research community. While governor from 1990 to 1994, he helped restructure Connecticut's tax system, reduce spending, impose tough hand gun laws, and introduce health reform. His remarkable career and independent thinking inform his book Maverick: A Life in Politics (1995). Governor Weicker is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Virginia Law School. He is currently Chairman of Dresing, Lierman & Weicker law firm in Bethesda, Maryland. Back.
