Henry Imler February 13th, 2007

In the architecture of nationhood, the United
States had achieved something quite remarkable…. Americans had
erected their constitutional roof before they put up the national
walls. Hovering there over a divided people, it aroused wonder and awe,
even ecstasy. Early historians rewrote the past to make the
Constitution the culminating event of their story…. Orators plundered
the language in search of fitting praise. Someone may have even put the
document to music. This spirit of Amazement, this frenzy of
self-congratulation, owed it intensity to the terrible fear that the
roof could come crashing down at almost any time. Indeed, the national
walls have take much longer to build.

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