Ed Thompson's "Bill of Rights" Speech
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December 13, 2003. Delivered in Green Bay, Wisconsin. As we gather together today to commemorate the signing of the first ten amendments to the Constitution of this great country known as the Bill of Rights, we are reminded that America is a nation that was founded on an idea. That idea, as expressed in our nation's original document, the Declaration of Independence, is that ordinary people -- that you and me and the person standing next to you and the person standing next to them -- that "all men" as Thomas Jefferson wrote, are "endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights." "Endowed by their creator with certain alienable rights." Endowed meaning that these rights, these freedoms which are documented in this Bill of Rights which we celebrate today are inherent to the human condition. They are ours simply by virtue of being human beings. They are not privileges granted to us through the generosity of a beneficent state (if, indeed, there is such a thing as a beneficent state). Neither are they gifts given to us by these ten amendments, nor by the great Constitution that preceded them, nor by any document forged by human hands. These freedoms are inherently ours. They are our birthrights. And because these rights are inherently ours they are inalienable or un -a-LIEN-able, meaning that no lien can be placed against them. They cannot be sold or transferred. They cannot be taken away. Unfortunately, however, as we have seen so often recently, they can be ignored. They can be trampled upon. They can be "legislated against." Having fought a war to cast off the shackles of a government that did just such things, the founding fathers of this nation recognized this fact. And so they drafted this document -this " Bill of Rights" -- not to bestow upon us freedoms which, as human beings, we already had, but rather to instruct government -- in clear and certain terms -- not to interfere with those freedoms. As we stand on the steps of this courthouse today we are reminded that the purpose of American government is to secure the individual rights of its citizens as laid out in our Constitution and in this Bill of Rights. And that the purpose of our judiciary is to guard those freedoms against all encroachments -- to serve, in the words of James Madison, as "an impenetrable bulwark & resisting every encroachment upon rights." Yet today, despite this document, and despite the visions of our forefathers, we see our own government - a government whose founded purpose was to secure the individual rights of its citizens - increasingly trespassing upon those rights. And the courts whose very existence was to ensure that the rights of citizens were never encroached upon serving instead as a strong-arm of the government, upholding whatever "laws" our legislators might choose to enact regardless of whether they infringe upon individual rights or not. So what are we to do? How are we to claim our rights? For our individual rights as laid out in this document, this Bill of Rights, are still ours regardless of the actions of our legislators and judges. They are inherent and inalienable and cannot be taken away But they must be claimed. We must take this piece of paper, this document, and turn it from a written Bill of Rights into a LIVING Bill of Rights. And there is but one way to do this. First, we must know our rights. We must be intimately familiar with our nation's Constitution and all of its amendments. And then, knowing our rights, we must demand that they be recognized and upheld. We must shout them from every rooftop in the nation and in every courtroom and every legislative office. We must demand that our government officials and judges recognize them. And should any public official fail to uphold the individual rights of any person we must demand that that official BE FIRED and replaced with honorable and patriotic men and women who recognize that the job of public officials under the Constitution of this nation is to uphold the rights of its citizens, and indeed of all men, and not to infringe upon them. For it is only when every one of us not only knows our rights but demands them, and demands that the rights of each and every human being - be they man or woman, Christian or Muslim, black or white, American or Afghani, - be upheld, it is only then that this document, this Bill of Rights which we celebrate today, will be more than a bit of ink on a piece of paper and will become a true affirmation of our inherent freedoms and the standard by which our government functions. The late Learned Hand, one of America's great justices wrote: "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women: When it dies there no constitution, no law, no court can save it." In other words, ladies and gentlemen, the real protectors of liberty are not constitutions or bills of rights or courts but us, the citizens of this great United States. We have a great and noble task before us. How well we do it will determine whether this Bill of Rights or the freedoms it details will long survive the tyranny of those who today conspire to deprive us of them. May the God who bestowed upon us the inalienable rights documented in this, our nation's Bill of Rights, give us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to claim and defend them. |