[Pages S7855-S7857]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

CONSTITUTION DAY ESSAYS

Mr. SASSE. I thank the Senator from Mississippi for yielding to me.
Mr. President, I rise to highlight the work of some truly impressive
Nebraska high school students. In September, to celebrate Constitution
Day, my office offered a challenge to high schoolers in my State to
submit essays describing ``The Relationship Between the Declaration of
Independence and the U.S. Constitution.'' We received contributions
from across Nebraska from students in public, private, and home
schools.
Today, I am pleased to announce the three winners: Ingrid Williamsen
from Logan View Senior High School in the

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First Congressional District; Patrick Collins from the AP U.S. History
Class at Mount Michael Benedictine in Elkhorn in the Second
Congressional District; and Kate Pipher from Nebraska Christian School
in Central City in the Third Congressional District.
The lessons these three Nebraska students can teach us are enduringly
relevant not only for other high schoolers but in this body today. I
would like to read briefly from each of their essays.
Ingrid Williamsen wrote:

The Constitution was put in place so that the rights and
liberties laid out in the Declaration of Independence could
be enforced. It puts limits on the government so that the
government cannot infringe on the rights of the people. It
gives the new government the power to guarantee the liberty
of all the people. Both functions are directly tied to the
Declaration.

In her essay, Kate Pipher wrote:

The Founding Fathers adopted a humble posture to both their
Creator and a great humanity. They understood they did not
possess the power to redefine the rights of man. Their role
was to defend, discover, and reveal those rights for the
citizens. The Constitution's goal is to protect the
inalienable rights of every individual Image-Bearer that the
Declaration of Independence lays out.

Finally, in his essay, Patrick Collins referenced Abraham Lincoln's
``Fragment on the Constitution'' and declared that the Constitution is
``the silver frame that protects the golden apple of the Declaration of
Independence. . . . Thus, the Constitution is indeed a structural
embodiment of those famous Truths which we held then and hold now to be
self-evident.''
I am grateful to have received so many great essays from students
across Nebraska. I thank all of them for their work. It is clear to me
that not only their classmates but Washington and this body can learn
some Schoolhouse Rock Civics from Nebraska high school kids.
I would like to congratulate Ingrid, Kate, and Patrick.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
their full essays.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

The Relationship Between the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution

INGRID WILLIAMSON--LOGAN VIEW SENIOR HIGH

The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution are
very separate but closely related documents. They are quite
similar in many ways and work together to form the backbone
of the United States.
The Declaration of Independence was written to justify the
Colonies independence from Great Britain. It goes further and
sets forth the principals and ideas for a fair new
government. The Constitution outlines how the new government
would function and enforce the rights in the Declaration.
The Declaration of Independence was designed and drafted to
justify the Colonies breaking away from Great Brittan. The
Declaration made clear promises as to the liberties that
should be given to all men, that all men are created equal,
and that everyone has the right to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. The Declaration set limits on the
government to ensure these rights are inevitable and never
taken away by the government.
The Constitution was put in place so that the rights and
liberties laid out in the Declaration of Independence could
be enforced. It is the document that sets forth how the new
government will function. It puts limits on the government so
that it cannot infringe upon the rights of the people. It
gives the new government the power to guarantee the liberty
of all the people. Both functions are directly tied to the
Declaration.
The Declaration of Independence will remain the same as it
is now, it cannot be changed. This makes it a purely
historical document. The Constitution is a living document
and has been and can be amended. This was by design and
allows both documents to better protect the natural rights of
all.
The relationship between the two documents, the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution, is one that cannot be
broken. Without either of them, the history and future of the
United States would have a much different blueprint. They are
two of the most important and endearing documents in the
history of the United States. Chief Justice Warren Burger
once said, ``The Declaration of Independence was the promise,
The Constitution was the fulfillment''. The Declaration of
Independence would be an unfulfilled promise had the
Constitution not been put in place.
____

KATE PIPHER--NEBRASKA CHRISTIAN

The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the
United States of America share a substantial relationship
because they both outline basic truths for The American
People that have caused our country to thrive. To begin, the
Founding Fathers argue that all rights come from a Creator,
not a fallible government. Then they conclude that the
purpose of the American government is to secure these God-
given rights.
The Declaration of Independence recognizes there are Laws
of Nature that God established. These laws are principles for
what is just, right, and true. They state that all people
have equal standing and dignity before God. Because certain
truths are self-evident, citizens carry responsibility to
self-govern. They are accountable to more than a man-made
government, they are accountable to a Sovereign God.
The authors of both documents recognized they were
discovering, not defining the inalienable rights of humanity.
The right to Life, Liberty, and Happiness outlined first in
the Declaration of Independence and then again in the 5th
amendment to the Constitution are God-given. The Founding
Fathers adopted a humble posture to both their Creator and a
greater humanity. They understood they did not possess the
power to redefine the rights of man. Their role was to
defend, discover, and reveal those rights for the citizens.
The Constitution's goal is to protect the inalienable rights
of every individual Image-Bearer that the Declaration of
Independence lays out. This is the unique, profound outlook
that both documents portray.
It was no accident that the men who penned the Constitution
utilized many of the terms from the Declaration of
Independence. The Constitution is an attempt to mirror
natural law with a civil, written law. In an ideal world, the
natural law of God and the law of man would align exactly.
The Founding Fathers stressed that the bent of the human
heart is towards tyranny. The Declaration of Independence was
an announcement that the citizens of America would not live
under tyranny any longer and desired an alternative form of
government. The Constitution resulted as a document that
protected the young country from inevitable tyranny.
The authors of the Constitution perceived that in order to
preserve the truths laid out in the Declaration and to secure
the blessings of liberty for their children and following
generations, a written law was necessary. The Declaration of
Independence provided a mandate for government to preserve,
secure, and provide the rights our generous God bestowed upon
us. The Constitution fulfilled that mandate. The ``We the
People'' from the preamble are, in essence, the same citizens
who recognized their rights from their Creator in the
Declaration of Independence. Acting upon the desire to
preserve these rights, they crafted two humble documents that
cataclysmicly shaped the course of America's history.
____

PATRICK COLLINS FROM MR. JOHN ROSHONE'S APUSH CLASS AT MOUNT MICHAEL
BENEDICTINE IN ELKHORN, NEBRASKA

One of the most fitting metaphors attributed to Abraham
Lincoln is that of the Constitution as the silver frame that
protects the golden apple of the Declaration of Independence.
While it certainly is apt to say that the Constitution's
framework is meant to embody the political philosophy
presented in the Declaration of Independence, even more
important than this overarching idea is a more specific one.
Most Americans are familiar with the words ``we hold these
truths to be self-evident,'' but arguably more pertinent to
the relationship between the Constitution and the Declaration
is an idea only discovered through a more than cursory
examination of the Declaration's less celebrated portion: the
27 grievances listed against the king of England. These
grievances illustrate the ease with which the British
government simply disregarded the English ``constitution,''
wherein the rights of the people and powers of the government
were often vague, unwritten traditional understandings
subject to individual interpretation. The first Americans
knew from experience that any document or governmental
structure attempting to restrict the government and preserve
the people's rights would be woefully inadequate if not
written frankly and followed strictly. In that sense, the
Declaration is not simply about the need for independence but
even more about the ancillarity of a written Constitution in
preserving the desired freedom.
Understanding the importance of adhering to a strict
structure, it is eminently clear that any interpretation or
judicial decision that seeks to change the original meaning
of this structure is misguided. Attempting to push the
Constitution in a desired direction without actually changing
its words, while typically well-intentioned, betrays the
ideals expressed in the Declaration and fought for in the
Revolution and undermines the purpose of creating a written
Constitution in the first place, and yet so many still seek
to do so. Our cultural misunderstanding of this portion of
the reasoning behind American independence is so pervasive
that a large portion of American society truly believes that
the Supreme Court has the authority to create new laws and
amendments from the bench. If so many Americans continue to
treat our founding documents with such flippancy, we will not
even realize as our leaders begin to do the same and our
Constitution effectively morphs into the vaguely understood
one that the British had so long ago. We have forgotten so
thoroughly the grievances that necessitated independence that
we would not bat an eye if our own government were to violate
the same principles

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of freedom today. Our Founding Fathers would cringe to see
our Constitution treated more and more like the one from
which they sought so furiously to gain independence at the
genesis of our nation. Thus, the Constitution is indeed a
structural embodiment of those famous truths which we held
then and hold now to be self-evident. However, the oft-
forgotten grievances in the Declaration render the need for a
government and a people that hold to the original meaning of
that Constitution equally self-evident to any who dare to dig
deeper.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from Mississippi.

____________________