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I will be speaking at an event in Grand Forks, North Dakota this evening. My wife suggested that my speech and today’s newsletter be the same document with some minor differences for each audience. Seems like a good idea, but I am never quite so easy on myself. Besides, this newsletter will go out before my speech, so anyone in the crowd who had read it would not hear anything original, and that feels like cheating my audience.
Anyway, welcome to Constitution Day, 2025. Those of you who walk around with pocket-sized U.S. Constitutions should take them out and read them. For too many such people, the Constitution does not say what they think it says (to paraphrase a line from Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride). If what I have witnessed comes anywhere near matching the actual data, the Venn diagram of these Constitution-as-a-prop people and the Bible-as-a-prop people is nearly a perfect circle.
One Sunday about twenty years ago, I went to a friend’s church at her invitation. It was a Christian church, but it didn’t seem Christ-centered or even Bible-centered. There were songs and prayers and a very long sermon by a pastor who had a Bible in his hand but never opened it. He was the hero of the stories he told. He talked (bragged?) of how he had shown acquaintances, including other pastors, the error of their ways. One of those poor, lost souls had not not trusted enough in Christ, and had thus not been generous enough in his giving to the church. The sermon directly preceded the offering.
That church, it seemed to me, was centered on the pastor.
Our country is not centered on a person. It is not centered on an institution.
Our country is centered on a document, one with the clear intention of keeping any one person or institution from gaining too much power. Unfortunately, a document cannot defend itself, which is why people in government service take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
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Our senators and representatives in Congress take that oath, and so they are sworn not just to uphold the Constitution, but to defend it. When they see it being trampled on, they have a duty to speak up. They should stand up to anyone who is trying to usurp power or get around the Constitution, no matter how powerful that person or entity may be. If standing up results in threats of violence or political retaliation, it will only prove the rightness of their stand. If fear of such threats keeps them from taking a stand, they should resign.
They could take a stand on this:
Article I, Section 9
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Or this:
Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
In the near term, that is not going to happen. Congress will not take back their power. They will not enforce the emoluments clause. The long=term solution is voting them out of office and pressuring the people who replace them to rein in the abuse, codify the norms, and fix the system. Until then, we all need to stand up for our rights and the rights of others. We need to make ourselves seen and heard. Many people will be doing that today. I will be joining some of them, because I believe it can make a difference.
On that awful Saturday morning when a gunman murdered a Democratic state representative and her husband and shot a Democratic state senator and his wife in Minnesota, I was scheduled to speak at a protest. Another protest in Bismarck that morning was threatened on social media. I never had a moment of hesitation or fear, and neither did the 400 people who showed up to protest that day. Organizers were wary, but we all recognized that caving to bullies has never made anything better in the long run.
So, I will be supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States of America today by standing in front of a crowd and talking about how the rights granted by our Constitution are only guaranteed when we are willing to fight for them.
No formal ceremony is required to enter the fight. The oath to support and defend is implicit in our citizenship.
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