When I woke up yesterday morning this was sitting in my inbox from Intercollegiate Studies Institute:

Constitution Day is this Sunday, September 17. That’s right: 230 years ago, our Founders signed the United States Constitution. …

There is no better guide to constitutional principles than We Still Hold These Truths by Hillsdale College dean Matthew Spalding. Don’t take my word for it: the Weekly Standard calls it “the single best introduction to the political thought of the American Founding.”

Happy Constitution Day. In light of the Constitution’s 230th anniversary I’ll share this photo I took at Washington Square in Philadelphia a few years ago:

And this photo of John Marshall I took at the Philadelphia Art Museum a few years ago, that has a beautifully compelling and compact inscription on its podium:

John Marshall
Chief Justice of the United States
1801-1835

As soldier he fought that the nation might come into being.
As expounder of the Constitution he gave it length of days.

Far more than simply voting, Americans can ask themselves how they can build lives and live in community with their neighbors in a way that gives our constitutional way of life further “length of days.”

The American dream isn’t finally about financial/material success or the pursuit of more. In fact, it’s the unique American dream of conserving the bounty of liberty that was build up over centuries and millennia from our English ancestors, and the Romans and Greeks before them, and their ancient ancestors and neighbors and on.

We have this great republic and the dream is that our children might, if we can keep it.