This information is from the office of 28th District Sen. Joey Hensley, MD, R-Hohenwald, who represents Giles, Lewis, Marshall, Maury and part of Williamson counties.
Our nation celebrated a very important birthday Sept. 17. This date 231 years ago, 39 delegates of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia signed the greatest protection of life, liberty and property the world has ever seen – the U.S. Constitution.
It is altogether appropriate that we reflect on this amazing document, and what it means to Americans.
That is why I sponsored legislation that passed our General Assembly designating the week of Sept. 17 as “Celebrate Freedom Week” in Tennessee public schools.
It is important to educate students about sacrifices for freedom in the founding of this country and the values upon which it was founded.
This initiative emphasizes teaching about the country’s origins with an emphasis on founding documents, including the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Some forget that liberty and freedom, ideas our founding fathers committed to in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, took 11 years to manifest.
Victories on battlefields during the Revolutionary War paved the way for freedom, but a great deal of work was yet to be done.
Serving in the General Assembly, I can very well imagine the debate during that time. However, despite all of the differing opinions, in the end unity among the states was established as all the different factions came to a consensus and the Constitution was ratified. It is important to remember that without it, the War for Independence could have very easily been just another war for power and control. The principles of representative democracy — as outlined in the Constitution — made the war a revolution.
You have to stop and wonder how our founding fathers over 200 years ago could put into place a Constitution which could mete out such complex 21st century problems like the federal government’s rules on power plant emissions at a time before the lightbulb was invented.
That is the wisdom of this document. It addressed the challenges of our newly formed nation and yet the language was broad enough to accommodate that of future generations. Words in the Constitution have seen the unimaginable: foreign and domestic wars, social upheavals, economic times both good and bad, terrorist attacks and unprecedented changes in our country’s people, businesses, environment and technology.
Yet they have been debated and decided within the context of the Constitution. It also has stood the test of time due to the impeccable process in which amendments have been added after much forethought and scrutiny.
In his farewell speech, George Washington referenced the Constitution saying, “The Constitution and the government it establishes "has a just claim to [our] confidence and respect because it is "the offspring of our choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers uniting security with energy, and containing, within itself, a provision for its own amendment."
He was right! This revolution was not defined by fighting alone, but the ideas that united America and proved to the world that democracy will always be worth fighting for.
Yes, we need to celebrate our Constitution’s birthday and pass its importance to our children and grandchildren who will be the next guarantors of democracy, freedom and liberty.
Sen. Hensley may be contacted at 425 Rep. John Lewis Way N., Suite 742, Nashville, TN ., 37243, or call 615-741-3100, or call toll free 1-800-449-8366 ext. 13100, or fax 615-253-0231. His district address is 855 Summertown Highway, Hohenwald, TN., 38462, or phone 931-796-2018, or call his cell phone at 931-212-8823, or e-mail: sen.joey.hensley@capitol.tn.gov