Preserving and guarding the principles of the Constitution

W. West Allen
National President, Federal Bar Association

The U.S. Constitution is the written embodiment of hope and freedom to the world. It was established to protect all people by just and hallowed principles. The preservation of these principles requires that we understand the Covenant of Citizenship and then defend it, for We the People are the Guardians of the Constitution.

Two centuries and 33 years after our nation’s birth, we are called to build on the constitutional foundation laid by our nation’s founders. We are called to understand, teach, and sustain the Constitution and its founding principles of good government. This responsibility requires firm resoluteness, for we are only one generation away from losing the understanding of freedom that the Constitution itself protects.

George Washington understood that our Constitution was paramount to the eternal cause of freedom. He also understood that it was only a beginning. To this day, in our nation’s first capitol, New York City, President Washington’s words are inscribed on a magnificent arch in Washington Square Park. They read:

“Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God.” 

Washington understood that his founding generation, with the guiding hand of providence, was laying a foundation for the cause of freedom among all nations. It would be for later generations to build the superstructure of a more perfect union upon it.

The cause of freedom in government is a continuing, noble work—established line upon line, precept upon precept, generation by generation. It is advanced each day by citizens who remember and understand the miracle of our Constitution and its founding principles.

No greater responsibility rests upon citizens of this republic, or of any republic, than to protect the freedom vouchsafed by the Constitution of the United States.

What are the foundational constitutional principles for this standard of which Washington spoke that has been raised to the world? I’ll highlight five:

1. Popular Sovereignty

The people are the only lawful source of governmental power. Government is chartered by limited, enumerated powers to be exercised only as authorized by the people according to their written law, which is the Constitution.

2.  Federalism

The division of power between state and federal government must exist to diffuse centralized power.

3.  Separation of Powers

The people’s government has three coordinate and equal branches, which further diffuse centralized power: The legislative, the executive, and the judiciary. Each has unique abilities to check and balance the others.

4.  The Bill of Rights

The People’s enumeration of certain unalienable rights must be held inviolable by government. These include the freedom of religion, speech, the press, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition government for a redress of grievances. No action by government should ever subvert these rights.

5.  The Rule of Law

All citizens are governed by and held accountable to laws that are just, publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated. Vague, incoherent, arbitrary, or unwritten law is no law at all.

To these could be added the unspoken constitutional principles of hope, faith, virtue, knowledge, fortitude, patience, kindness, humility, diligence, and gratitude. Upon these constitutional principles is good government built.

Yet, as our founders understood, the success of a republic is neither inevitable nor complete. It is not enough to believe in democracy, liberty, free enterprise, or justice under the law. We must work for it, extend past our belief, and truly know and understand the constitutional principles that make these noble pursuits possible.

We are to build the American superstructure of freedom and equal justice upon the sure foundation of the Constitution and its enduring principles. Our role as guardians and teachers is to act, and not be acted upon.

This work is more important today than any generation since our nation’s founding, for we fight against apathy and ignorance, against state oppression and spiritual darkness in high places.

I commit, as the president of the Federal Bar Association (FBA), to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, to do everything in my power to strengthen the federal legal system and administration of justice.

I invite every judge and lawyer across this nation to engage in this noble work. Join us! Work with us!

I also invite every American citizen who cherishes justice and freedom to rise up and do the same. Defend the Constitution and the freedoms it guarantees. Contribute to the Foundation of the Federal Bar Association. Download the National Constitution Center’s mobile Interactive Constitution App. Learn and teach the Constitution and its founding principles to yourselves and your children. Read and study George Washington’s Farewell Address—more applicable today than ever. These are simple, concrete acts that will extend the reach of freedom to the next generation.

May we remember our constitutional oaths. May we together and united as Americans of this great, promised nation remember our Covenant of Citizenship. And may we do so always with gratitude for all that we have been given.

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 W. West Allen was recently installed as the 93rd national president of the Federal Bar Association, one of the largest national bar associations in the country with approximately 20,000 members nationwide. Learn more at fedbar.org.