Celebrate Constitution Day Sept. 17th

September 17 is designated as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia 227 years ago. Recognizing that the Articles of Confederation were insufficient for governance, delegates from the 13 states debated issues of federalism and representation throughout May and into September. 

Four men from South Carolina signed the document that has become the longest-lived national constitution in the world. These men were John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney and Pierce Butler. America's Founding Fathers website gives a brief biographical sketch of each man. Each one had a connection to Beaufort District. 

South Carolina's delegates were strong advocates for protecting

Pierce Butler

property rights particularly with regard to the enslaved and in determining the formula for  representation under the proposed new form of government. I posted the source list for a presentation I did back in March 2014 about the role that Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Pierce Butler and John Keans of Beaufort District played in the formation and adoption of United States Constitution in the bdcbcl.wordpress.com blog recently. Find "Beaufort District's Role in the Formation and Adoption of the US Constitution" at http://bit.ly/1uByfNY.  

After a few months, the delegates had created a draft of a proposed Constitution to structure a new government for the fledgling nation. According to the History Channel's webpages about the US Constitution: "The document that emerged from the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 was the product of a sense of urgency and of mission, solid preparation, and secret debate that allowed open-mindedness and compromise, and a body of delegates who in the aggregate possessed both a command of political philosophy and much practical experience under state constitutions and the Articles of Confederation."
 

Charles C. Pinckney

The US National Archives is responsible for the caring for the US Constitution. Check out the DocsTeach website devoted to learning more about this document. 

Be sure to visit the BDC's Facebook page on September 17th  for additional tidbits about the defining document of our republic. (Please "Like" us while you're there.)

To see what is available within the Beaufort County Library about this crucial document, click here for a bookbag I  created on "Founding Fathers."