On its anniversary, the Constitution is the underdog

Post by Mark Meckler and Sen. Tom Coburn

Rocky Balboa, Rudy, the Amazin’ Mets, the Miracle on Ice.

Americans love the underdog, because we were once underdogs ourselves. A hodgepodge group of British colonies perched on the coast of a wild, unexplored land had the guts to challenge the world’s superpower — and we won. It’s a story no one would believe if it weren’t written down in our history books.

After our improbable victory against Great Britain, the men who had inspired this coalition of outsiders to fight for independence now had the task of governing a new nation. They set out on a great experiment to see whether liberty really could be balanced with order in government.

Many said it would never work, that this tiny nation would never last. But 55 delegates in Philadelphia made sure we not only survived, but that we thrived.

On Sept. 17, 1787, they signed the Constitution that would govern these United States for centuries to come. These ordinary men, fueled by the fire of self-governance, put feet to the theory of the rule of law and insisted that this nation could and should be governed by the written word, not a hierarchy of men.

They entrusted the sovereign citizens with the power to directly influence their government. They wanted to preserve the hard-won liberty they celebrated just 11 years prior when the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. They put safeguards in their new Constitution to avoid the tyranny they had recently escaped: three branches of government instead of one sovereign royal head, each with the power to restrain the other.

Please enjoy the rest of this piece at the Washington Times.