Protecting the founding documents
The Constitution is housed, under glass for safekeeping, at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The romantic and the realist might together say: wrong, it resides in the hearts and sinews of the people of the United States.
The parchment on which the Constitution was first written is now being seen over by a Western Pennsylvanian, a graduate of Norwin High School (Class of ’93). That would be Colleen Shogan, the nation’s archivist-in-chief, the first woman to lead the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) since its creation in the 1930s.
Shogan has been on the job several months, following a rocky confirmation process, during which the career-nonpartisan was accused by Sen. Josh (Run-Don’t-Walk) Hawley, Republican of Missouri, of being a wildly partisan Democrat and of lying under oath.
Confirmed by the Senate in May by a vote of 52-45 (Republicans Capito, Collins, and Murkowski were for her), Shogan was officially inducted into office on Monday – September 11 – during a ceremony attended by Chief Justice John Roberts and first lady Jill Biden, plus family and friends, some of whom possibly traveled from North Huntingdon Township for the occasion.
At the ceremony, Shogan wore a white jacket, over a print dress, in honor of the suffragettes, the band of courageous women who agitated for the vote for women early in the 20th century. She said she was mindful of the history she was making.
Her No. 1 task, she intimated, is to get at the backlog of 300,000 applications from veterans for their military records; the backlog, accounting for delays of months, if not years, in veterans receiving benefits due them, is a vexing problem without a quick and easy solution, absent possibly an infusion of cash from Congress for more staff and more efficient digital hardware.
“Timidity will not be our friend as (federal government) records continue to proliferate at exponential rates,” Shogan warned, urging the speedy adoption of the latest digital tools.
She said she looked forward to making the National Archives more relevant and more accessible, declaring the institution she now leads should be “a first stop” for students and teachers hoping to sharpen their civic skills and awareness.
“Understanding American history and government shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought,” Shogan said. “An engaged and informed citizenry is a critical prerequisite for the health of our democracy, and we need to treat it as such.”
Shogan said she visits the Constitution’s esteemed predecessor, the Declaration of Independence (also under glass and on public display at the National Archives), every day. “It contains,” she noted, “perhaps the most audacious statement in the history of the world – that ‘all men are created equal.'”
Without necessarily disagreeing about Shogan’s take on the Declaration of Independence, Roy Smock is big on the preamble to the Constitution, as a measuring stick for smart government and active, informed citizenship.
Smock, the former historian of the U.S. House and director emeritus of the Robert C. Byrd Center Center for Congressional History and Education, headquartered in Shepherdstown, W. Va., has written, “I have long thought that the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution is the very best single sentence ever written that explains the purpose of government. It is 52 words in length.”
Written by Gouverneur Morris, the preamble, Smock argues, contains “six broad areas of purpose” or “touchstones” all citizens can quickly and easily refer to in judging “how well we are doing.”
The preamble reads, in part, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish….”
Inserted into the Constitution almost as an afterthought, Morris’ preamble along with Jefferson’s Declaration and Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg underpin nearly all of American history and government.
Or they should. As Shogan said, “These are remarkable times in our nation’s history.” With extraordinary ease, many Americans seem ready to jettison the robust democratic norms fixed in the living Constitution for the chaos, confusion, illegality, and sheer stupidity of today’s unconservative far-right agenda.
From the Capitol (example, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green) to the Fayette County courthouse (example, Jon “The Hillbilly” Marietta Jr.), too many folks appear to be aiming at something other than the democratic order sketched out for us at the very beginning by the Founders in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, documents not just Shogan but the rest of us should feel duty-bound to protect.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.