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SALT LAKE CITY — Americans have celebrated July 4 to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence for centuries, but the nation's founding document, the Constitution, wasn't ratified for more than a decade following the original Independence Day.
Thanks to a law signed earlier this year by Gov. Spencer Cox, Utah will now celebrate the U.S. Constitution each September during American Founders and Constitution Month, and students are invited to celebrate Constitution Day by learning about and reading directly from the founding document each Sept. 17 — on the anniversary of the creation of the Constitution in 1787.
Cox spoke of both foundational documents in a speech at the state Capitol in Salt Lake City on Thursday to kick off the first Constitution Month.
"The Declaration of Independence sets forth the principles on which our nation is based. The Constitution then takes that Declaration and embodies it in a practical way to govern our country," he told a crowd gathered in the rotunda. "And that's why I don't think you can have one of those documents without the other."
He spoke of the "radical idea" contained in both documents, that "we, all of us, are endowed by our Creator, by God, with certain unalienable rights," and that "government is then formed to protect those rights, not the other way around."
The genius of the founders, Cox said, was that they had the foresight to craft a document to guide future Americans to govern themselves, rather than trying to anticipate and address every possible hurdle the nation might face.
"The genius of the Constitution is also how short it is," he said. "You should not be able to govern over 300 million people with a document that short. But they understood something: that America — and in our pluralistic society with all of the differences — would never work if we were not a good and decent and moral people. That you could never write enough laws to govern all of mankind. That we would have to self-govern. That we would have to build institutions to govern ourselves, including religious institutions, volunteer institutions."
Cox's predecessor, former Gov. Gary Herbert, praised the separation of sovereignty contained in the Constitution, which puts "centralized government in a box" and delegates most of the power to the states.
He referenced James Madison's Federalist No. 45, which reads, "The powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state government are numerous and indefinite."
The benefits of federalism extend beyond just local control and allow states to act as "laboratories of democracy" by experimenting with different policies, Herbert said. American Founders and Constitution Month is a chance for Utahns to reflect on the intent of the founders because today "people are looking too much to Washington, D.C." for help solving problems, he said.
Quoting founder father John Adams, Cox said, "Without the great political virtues of humility, patience and moderation, every one of us becomes a ravenous beast of prey."
Ladies and gentlemen, there is increasing evidence that the sun is setting in our country today. But that is not written in the stars. We have the ability, each of us as Americans, to decide whether than sun is setting or that sun is rising. I believe ... this room is filled with sun risers, not sun setters.
–Utah Gov. Spencer Cox
Cox visited Philadelphia earlier this year for the first time and described becoming emotional when he saw the chair that George Washington sat in to preside over the Constitutional Convention. The chair was engraved with a sun of which Benjamin Franklin reportedly said: "I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I ... know that it is a rising ... sun."
But because many Americans have strayed from those previously mentioned virtues amid a contentious political climate, Cox said it will take work to ensure that the sun continues to rise.
"Ladies and gentlemen, there is increasing evidence that the sun is setting in our country today," he said. "But that is not written in the stars. We have the ability, each of us as Americans, to decide whether than sun is setting or that sun is rising. I believe ... this room is filled with sun risers, not sun setters.
"Studying this document with our children, helping them understand the history of this great nation — yes, the flaws, but also our ability to overcome those flaws because of the wisdom that exists in these documents — is what makes this sun a rising sun."
