Studying the U.S. Constitution after 237 years

We were honored to host a reception for Constitution Day, in collaboration with the Historical Society of the New York Courts and Queens Family Court for the 237th Anniversary of the Signing of the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787.

The program began across the street, at the Queens Family Court with opening remarks by Hon. Edwina G. Richardson, Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for Justice Initiatives, NYS Unified Court System. Following that, Hon. Philippe Solages, Jr., Acting Supreme Court Justice, Court of Claims Judge, NYS Supreme Court, Nassau County?Prof. Tyler Rose Clemons? Assistant Professor of Law, St. John’s University School of Law?held a conversation on The Evolution of the U.S. Constitution: A Constitution Day Look Back and Forward. Their talk looked back at the evolution of the Constitution from the days of its ratification and forward to today’s constitutional issues to investigate how we understand what the Constitution means.??

This Thursday, September 19, King Manor will host our annual Constitution & Cocktails fundraiser, which celebrates Rufus King's legacy as a writer of the Constitution by honoring a community member who embodies the spirit of a "more perfect Union." This year we are proud to honor Hersh K. Parekh, Esq. for his work at The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey , making sure that education and economic opportunities presented by such large projects as the rebuilding of La Guardia airport, and now the massive undertaking at JFK airport, reach local communities, especially underserved populations and MWBEs.

Tickets are available here. https://kingmanor2024.eventbrite.com

Seven years ago, I wrote a short essay for a booklet that was distributed at our Constitution & Cocktails event that celebrated the 230th anniversary. Although a lot has happened in the world since then, I think it is still worthy of a read and reflection. If I wrote this today, I would add in a paragraph at the end making a connection between the preamble as lettered on King Manor's fence, which faces the Queens Family Court - a building named after Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court Justice. Had he been alive in 1787, Hon. Marshall's rights would not have been enshrined in the Constitution. While Rufus King opposed slavery, he still signed the Constitution, while several other delegates refused to do so. Was having a unified country more important than the rights of one third of the people who lived here? What would an alternative have looked like?

“A republic, if you can keep it,” Benjamin Franklin famously said in response to a question about the form of government established by the freshly signed United States Constitution. Rufus King and the other framers added their signatures on September 17, 1787, just a few months after the delegates had first convened on May 25 of the same year. This was a remarkably short time to develop a foundational document still considered nearly as unique today as it was when it entered the annals of world history 230 years ago, especially considering that in June the delegates were not yet in agreement as to whether they were meeting to amend the Articles of Confederation or to write a new Constitution.

In the 1850s, French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville called the United States Constitution “the most perfect federal constitution that ever existed.” While the document remains hallowed 230 years after its signing, the framers did not conceive of the Constitution as perfect, but rather the “result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession.” That the Constitution was a living document, meant to be adapted with changing circumstances is evidenced by its amendability and attention to process over content. King himself was acutely aware of the importance of process during the Constitutional Convention, leading the opposition to a proposed polling and recording of individual members during the drafting process. His reasoned argument, that this would discourage freedom of debate, led to unanimous rejection of the polling proposition. King was also a staunch advocate of the separation of powers and the principle of judicial review, two of the key elements that every schoolchild learns makes the United States Constitution unique.

Nearly all of the framers had some objections to the Constitution even as they signed it on September 17, 1787, but they had “kept steadily in [their] view that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union.” Of course a federal constitution was not and is not enough to create a unified nation, as subsequent events in American history continue to demonstrate. Despite the various conflicts, challenges, and wars the United States has faced in the past 230 years, the Constitution has not only survived, but become perhaps the country’s most important -albeit contested- symbol of the country. But even more important than its symbolic value, is the fact that the amendment process allows the United States to continue to strive for a “more perfect union,” protecting the rights and liberties of all her citizens.

-Kelsey Brow, 2017