Two Hundred and Fifteen years ago this country set out upon a great
journey of discovery. We determined to test the proposition that a
diverse people with differing interests; separated by geographic realities
and differing ethnic heritage could be brought together in a union
of peoples and construct a united nation of separate states. In 1787
we sought to codify the social contract between the people and their
government. What emerged from that hot Philadelphia summer was the
Constitution of the United States.
Since that journey began we have met test after test, trial after
trial always returning to the proposition that government is, at its
base, an agreement between the governed and the governors. What has
kept us together despite all of the forces that have been marshaled
to drive us apart has been our loyalty to the principle that the people
are entitled to the determinative voice in government.
Our public officials swear an oath of fidelity, not to a king or a
President, not to a person or an idol, but to the Constitution, the
embodiment of our founding principle – The Constitution of the
United States. We pledge allegiance to the social compact that binds
us together.
Every two years we come together at polling places across the nation
to express our determinative voice. Every two years we are for that
briefest of moments and in the privacy of the polling booth the most
powerful voice in all of the world. In that instant we are neither
Democrat or Republican – we are each of us the very core of
America. It is more than a privilege and more than a right. It is
a solemn duty to exercise judgment without regard to partisan advantage
or political posturing as we engage in our biennial renewal of the
American Revolution.
May the Divine Providence upon which our founders called grant us
humility, wisdom, and courage that our choices advance the ordered
liberty and individual freedom upon which the nation is founded.
