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necessary to create a totally vital and viable document.
If at times you despair that consensus is impossible,
compromise inconceivable and, in fact, that this is
too great a test for human minds, know that encouragement
and inspiration reach out to you from the past -- that
what you attempt has been successfully accomplished
before.
Confidence and comfort for today are to be
gained from memories of our nation's first Constitutional
Convention, where experienced and dedicated -- yet
fallible and mortal men -- assembled to constitute a
totally new, representative and democratic government.
Conscious of their limitations but confident in their
principles, they forged a free and flexible Federal
System and gave birth to an enduring government. A
government so good and great, its characterization by
Thomas Jefferson almost two centuries ago is applicable
today: "With all the imperfections of our present
government, it is without comparison the best existing,
or that ever did exist." |
