On the recordSeptember 16, 2014
This is Constitution Week, the week that we honor our Constitution, drafted in 1787 on September 15 and signed on the 17th. I spoke to a class about it in Memphis. I looked at the class, which is almost entirely African American, and I thought about the Constitution having in it slavery and not having in it a woman's right to vote. Then I have been watching Ken Burns' ``The Roosevelts'' and seeing how Teddy Roosevelt would have thought about where we are today. Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt knew we needed a central government to work for the people. Teddy Roosevelt said the Constitution was for the people, not the people for the Constitution. He put right first and he fought the trusts and he looked after labor and he looked after the average American worker. He would have been repelled at the idea of not having a Voting Rights Act, as he had Booker T. Washington, the first African American in the White House. He would have been concerned about what this Congress is doing today and the prospect of war and our power to declare war and not acting and not exercising our constitutional prerogatives. The Ken Burns series is a tribute to two great men and a great family, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, who made America better. I wish this Congress would do the same. ____________________
