Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Constitution Writing

Rich Galen

Monday August 15, 2005

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The Sunday talk shows featured the US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, demanding to know whether the Iraqis will meet today's deadline for finishing a new constitution for the nation.

Having just finished David McCullough's best-selling history of our founding year, "1776", it is useful to remember our own history when it comes to constitution writing. It didn't go all that smoothly.

1776 was, as we learned in third grade, the year of the Declaration of Independence. However, the war was going so badly, that 1776 was also the year that the Continental Congress, having written, signed, and published the Declaration, skedaddled out of Philadelphia and hid out in Baltimore on the theory that, as they used to say, the British were coming.

But do you remember the date that the Revolutionary War ended? Yes? In the back? Correct. October 17, 1781 when General Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington at Yorktown, after more than five additional years of war.

And, according to the Library of Congress' summary of that year, even 1781 was not all that swell: "The beginning of the year, arguably, witnessed perhaps the low point of American morale during the Revolution."

And the "Preliminary Articles of Peace" officially ending the fighting, was not signed until over a year later, on November 30, 1782. This was followed, on September 3, 1783 - yet ANOTHER year later - by the Treaty of Paris which recognized the United States of America as a sovereign nation.

But that wasn't the end of the problems associated with nation building. The Continental Congress (having returned to Philadelphia) had adopted, in July, 1777, what came to be known as the "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" which went into effect on March 1, 1781 - four years later.

The Articles were so flawed that, according to MSN's Encarta Encyclopedia "On February 21, 1787, Congress called for a Constitutional Convention to be held in May to revise the articles."

If you haven't been keeping track, this would now be 10 years, 7 months, and 17 days after the Declaration of Independence.

The Constitutional Convention began on May 25, 1787 and ended on September 17, 1787 when the text was sent to the states for ratification.

Nine states out of the 13 were necessary to adopt the Constitution. Delaware, realizing that the small states were getting a really good deal, ratified first on December 7, 1787.

Again, from Encarta:

On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify, thus making the Constitution legally effective. But without ratification by New York and Virginia, it was doubtful the Constitution could succeed. Virginia ratified four days later, but by the narrow margin of 10 votes out of 168 cast. New York finally ratified on July 26, by a vote of 30 to 27. North Carolina eventually ratified in 1789, and Rhode Island in 1790.

So, it took from 1776 until 1790 for the United States to go from declaring its independence from England to final adoption of the document under which it would operate for the next 215 years.

Based upon that, the Iraqis could take until 2016 to get this all done and still beat the US timetable by a full year.

The Iraqis were freed of the tyranny of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. In June 2004 they accepted the return of sovereignty. In January 2004 they held elections. In August-September 2005 they will finish drafting a constitution. In October 2005 they will hold a referendum on that constitution. In December 2005 they will hold elections for a permanent government.

As lawyer-actor-Senator-actor Fred Thompson's character (Adm. Josh Painter) in "The Hunt for Red October" said, referring to Jack Ryan, "Now, it's up to you, Charlie, but you might consider cuttin' the kid a little slack."

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to all of the references above including the line from the "Hunt for Red October", a cranky Mullfoto and an interesting Catchy Caption of the Day.

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