Constitution Day
September 17 is Constitution Day. Our Founding Fathers created a document that has served this country well for the last 236 years. Constitution Day commemorates the signing of the Constitution by 39 brave men on September 17, 1787. By signing this document the founding fathers recognized all who are born in the United States and those who are naturalized as citizens of this United States of America.
Some Fascinating Facts about the U.S. Constitution
The U.S. Constitution has 4,400 words. It is the oldest and shortest written Constitution of any major government in the world.”
The Constitution was “penned” by Jacob Shallus, A Pennsylvania General Assembly clerk, for $30 ($726 today).
When the Constitution was signed, the United States’ population was 4 million. It is now more than 309 million. Philadelphia was the nation’s largest city, with 40,000 inhabitants.
A proclamation by President George Washington and a congressional resolution established the first national Thanksgiving Day on November 26, 1789. The reason for the holiday was to give “thanks” for the new Constitution.
It took one hundred days to actually “frame” the Constitution.
The members of the first Congress of the United States included 54 who were delegates to the Constitutional Convention or delegates to the various state-ratifying conventions. The number also included 7 delegates who opposed ratification.
The word “democracy” does not appear once in the Constitution.
The Constitution was ratified by specially elected conventions beginning in December 1787. The order in which the thirteen states accepted the new constitution was Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island.
As evidence of its continued flexibility, the Constitution has only been changed seventeen times since 1791!
The national government spent $4.3 million during the first session of Congress from 1789-1791. During the last year that George Washington was President of the United States (1796-1797), the entire cost of running the federal government was $5,727,000.
If you love this country and want to learn more about the Constitution, this class is well worth the time and effort.
Hillsdale College is offering a free online course on “Constitution 101” at http://www.hillsdale.edu/constitution/