Indeed, the Founders likely were the last ones to permit filiopietism to obscure any realistic analysis of the public well-being, past or present. Yet, in all of this, ancestor worship has little real place. Now in ’87, ’88, ’89, we celebrate our Constitutional Bicentennial, mark the framing of our national charter, its adoption finally by the 13 original states, and, as important – since it is and must always be for us a living Constitution – the gradual establishment (starting two centuries ago) of those procedures and precedents that would enable the more perfect union sought by the Founding Fathers to develop. 1976 marked the 200th anniversary of our nation’s beginning, when a decent respect to the opinions of mankind required that we declare our independence in terms of the essential truths we held to be self-evident. In these last years of the 20th century, we Americans have much to remember, much to commemorate both in our history and our heritage, which are, after all, different…the one marking simply what happened, the good and the bad, the other enshrining the best in our past, that to which Lincoln’s mystic chords of memory stretch out most meaningfully, touched, as he said, by “The better angels of our nature”. Heffner: I’m Richard Heffner, your host on THE OPEN MIND. Title: “In Defense of the Constitution: 1787-1987”
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