by Bryan Jones
On September 17, 2014, Dr. Stan Caress, professor of political science at the University of West Georgia, delivered a presentation entitled Why the Constitution Still Matters at the Ingram Library as part of the annual observance of Constitution Day.
In his presentation, Dr. Caress argued that the key reason the Constitution matters is because it is still in play in the modern day. The document, which is 227 years old, is not an ancient, outdated document but is a living document with a purpose.
“It creates our government but it’s also in many ways a rulebook,” Dr. Caress says. “It explains our structure of our government and also explains the rules that our government has to follow. It’s not like the Declaration of Independence that talks about rights and liberties; it talks about how our government is supposed to work.”
While the Constitution is extremely relevant to how our government is handled, it is not a complex document either. Unlike state constitutions, some of which are long and extensive such as the example of Wyoming’s constitution given by Dr. Caress during the presentation, the United States Constitution is very brief, and that simplicity creates a complex benefit.
“The constitution…is very practical,” explains Dr. Caress. “It lays out how our government is supposed to work. It was designed to be straightforward and clear even though it is sometimes a little bit vague and subject to interpretation.”
Constitution Day was established in 1952 after a law was passed to replace a repealed joint resolution that created I Am an American Day, which honored those who held American citizenship. The law moved the observation date from the third Sunday of May to September 17th of every year and renamed it Citizenship Day. In 2004, the day took on the name Constitution and Citizenship Day – generally known as Constitution Day – due to a section of an appropriations bill that was signed into law.
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