Constitution Day may be past, but Columbus Day seems also an apt day to reflect on the meaning of the Constitution, and a friend just sent me Leo Paul S. De Alvarez's (whose student I was many moons ago)Constitution Day speech from this year. It's not on-line, alas, UD professors being. . .ahem. . .constitutionally incapable of the basic elements of self-promotion, so you'll have to endure a long post. I don't know how to do that cool thing other bloggers do where you press a link to their whole post, enabling you to skip it if you'd rather not bother. On second thought, I'll start it here and post the rest in "comments."
Constitution Day, September 18, 2005
An Apple of Gold In A Frame of Silver
Leo Paul S. De Alvarez
An Apple of Gold In A Frame of Silver
Leo Paul S. De Alvarez
The proximate source of the title of my talk is a so-called “Fragment on the Constitution and the Union,” written by Abraham Lincoln on or about January 1861. In it he describes what he considers to be the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He speaks of the expression of the principle of “Liberty to all,” as “the principle that clears the path for all – gives hope to all – and by consequence, enterprize, and industry to all.” It is that principle, he says, expressed in the Declaration of Independence that is the philosophical cause of the Constitution and the Union; and that is “the primary cause of our great prosperity.” He then concludes: “The assertion of that principle, at that time, was the word, ‘fitly spoken’ which has proved ‘an apple of gold’ to us. The Union and the Constitution are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made not to conceal or destroy the apple, but to adorn and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple – not the apple for the picture.”[1]
The ultimate source is, however, Proverbs 25:11: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” One would have thought that Lincoln’s understanding of the relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution would be the accepted understanding. Perhaps it was so for a short while after the Civil War and the early 20th century. But soon there were dissenting voices from the academy and those dissenting voices have now so prevailed that someone who puts forward such a view is regarded with a mix of contempt and pity, as one would regard an adult who believed in some absurd and childish story.
Click the comments box to read the rest of the speech (beware lost formatting).
