CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

October 20, 1969

Page 30560

REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE

In a nation occupied with disagreement, dissent and disorder, the recollection of the signing of the Constitution should be an occasion of hope.

In the midst of turmoil -- as all of us are caught up in the fury of a social revolution -- we should take some time to recall what was in the minds of the men who felt it necessary to declare themselves free, to sever the political ties which bound them to their government, to fight a revolution, and to write the Constitution. It was their dream that the principles of the Declaration of Independence could be the basis of the new nation and that armed revolution would never be necessary again.

Deprived of meaningful participation in an absentee government, the colonists had exhausted the available opportunities of political dissent. They reluctantly chose revolution as the only course left. They knew the price of the citizenship that had been effectively denied to them by the British.

The preservation of the elements of citizenship for themselves and their children was a problem which no society before them had been able to solve. There was no proven answer, no form of self-government, nor democratic theory that they could be sure would work.

The Constitution has developed as no more than an incredibly durable product of their experiences, their values, and the traditions of British law. It is an experiment in representative, democratic government that has survived and evolved only through the continuous reaffirmation of liberty, freedom, and justice.

The Constitution has never been a magic wand of meaningful self-government. It is a human institution, dependent on people to make it work.

The Constitution has never guaranteed peace, tranquility, and happiness. It only offers the opportunity for the citizens to pursue those human goals without recourse to armed revolution.

As long as there was plenty of room in America for men to grow and fulfill their potential, this experiment was a great success. For Americans who controlled their own destinies, shaped their own social and political institutions, and enjoyed unmatched economic opportunity, our Constitutional principles were easily applied. Change came slowly, and the future was bright.

Suddenly this has changed, and the application of the Constitution is less sure and less steady.

"Whether or not the bombs go off," says Paul Goodman, "human beings are becoming useless. Old people are shunted out of sight at an increasingly earlier age, young people are kept on ice till an increasingly late age. Small farmers and other technologically unemployed are dispossessed or left to rot ... Racial minorities that cannot shape up are treated as a nuisance . . Since labor will not be needed much longer, there is vague talk of a future society of 'leisure,' but there is no thought of a kind of community in which all human beings would be necessary and valued."

So we ask if the Constitution can keep up with an America where scientific achievement has become a cult, where technology thrives on itself at an inhuman pace, and where social and political institutions have become centralized and removed from the communities and neighborhoods.

This feeling of loss of identity and lack of control is shared by the young, the Blacks, the Mexican-Americans, and the poor whites, and it is spreading. A new foreign policy, significant tax reform, and the protection of the environment -- substantive reforms which we all know we need -- are not alone going to awaken the citizenship that is missing.

What many Americans have lost to modern society consists of much more basic human needs -- needs recognized by the men who wrote the Constitution. These needs are the opportunities which enable citizens to assert effective control over their own lives.

As time has passed in America, the distance between the people and their government has increased as fast as our population. And that ever-widening separation has made it more and more difficult for people to get together to solve their problems -- to eliminate the gaps between generations and races.

The concepts of citizenship and self-government have come to have little meaning to a man who cannot find a job, adequate medical care, or a decent home. They have little meaning to a man whose taxes buy a freeway when he needs a subway to commute to work, or whose taxes pay a farmer not to grow crops when he cannot get enough food for his family.

The ideals of citizenship are scorned by a younger generation asked to fight in a war of dubious origin and uncertain purpose, facing a future in a world dehumanized by technology, and then told to wait for their turn to participate in the decision-making process.

The guarantees of the constitution are questioned by the hundreds of thousands of District of Columbia residents whose relationship to their government is that of tenants to an absentee landlord.

This is the most serious problem that faces America: How can we get some life back into the democratic experiment?

The only answer is to see that the tools of the democratic experiment -- the Constitutional guarantees of freedom, liberty, justice, and social economic and political participation -- be fully available to all Americans.

This equality was missing in America before 1775, was the premise of the Constitution, and is compromised too seriously in 1989. Together we must humanize and decentralize our public and private institutions -- remaking them to respond to all Americans. Almost 200 years after the Revolutionary War, Washington, D.C. is a colony of absentee rule, the American people lack a direct voice in the election of their President, millions of citizens are disenfranchised, and some Americans are more equal than others.

We cannot afford to widen the gap between promise and performance any more. When life for some Americans becomes this intolerable, our lack of action is no more acceptable than an over-reaction which widens the gap.

Our only choice is to work together on equal terms -- not as parts of the "problem" on the one hand and as parts of the "solution" on the other, but as partners in an effort to restore the most basic concepts of the Constitution to the life of each citizen. This is the challenge of citizenship today. Walter Lippmann recently put it this way:

"This is not the first time that human affairs have been chaotic and seemed ungovernable. But never before, I think, have the stakes been so high. I am not talking about, nor do I expect, a catastrophe like nuclear war. What is really pressing upon us is that the number of people who need to be governed and are involved in governing threatens to exceed man's capacity to govern.

“This furious multiplication of the masses of mankind coincides with the ever-more-imminent threat that, because we are so ungoverned, we are polluting and destroying the environment in which the human race must live.

“The supreme question before mankind -- to which I shall not live to know the answer -- is how men will be able to make themselves willing and able to save themselves."