Some thoughts...
A small building and broken bell, now sit quietly in repose, but the mighty experiment unleashed there still rolls on... can one nation dedicated to the proposition that all men (and women and maybe this time we really mean ALL) are created equal, continue to endure? Will government of the people, by the people, for the people perish from the earth?
We have passed through many dark days together since those self-evident truths were proclaimed in that small room. Some of those dark day forged the mystic cords of memory across a continent. Others have stretched those same cords to the breaking point during physical and verbal battles over competing interpretations of good governance. Yet so far, every time those cords have been stretched, they have mended with time and grown stronger. Can we not now see that those cords of memory and common experience that stretch across a seemingly broad chasm of cultures, opinion, and values create the very dynamic tension that serves to catapult us toward the future? That in debating and sharing our competing understandings of the very meaning of a more perfect union, of justice, tranquility, and general welfare, and how to provide for the common defense, that we deepen and enrich all of our visions of our nation?
In the hustle and bustle during the final adoption of the Constitution in that now quiet room, Benjamin Franklin is imputed to have said that he finally was convinced that the half sun on the back of Washington's chair was rising, not setting. That same chair still sits quietly in that room and perhaps is waiting for this generation to squarely face the same question.
Whether or not this nation remains the world's superpower or not will not be the test of how we answer that question. What is important is whether we continue the experiment together. Can government of the people, for the people, by the people continue to refine out all the old prejudices, all the old superstitions, and to bring out the shining core of glory in all the old values we hold dear and faithful but still remain bound by our fears, petty grievances, weaknesses, and ignorance? Will we continue to seek out better ways to live together in unity despite our very real differences?
The now silent bell is inscribed "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land." Then let the memory of that bell's clarion call so many generation ago, sound once again in our memory. Let us, like those generation of old, face the uncertain future by uniting together despite our differences. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to carry on the work they set forth so long ago at this place. Let us each in our own non-violent way seek to extend the blessing of liberty and self-determination to those still captive to poverty and threats of death, to ignorance, to sickness, to hatred, to sin, and to despair. That all may live lives of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that together we may achieve and cherish a just and lasting future for ourselves, with peace among ourselves and with all nations.
