On September 28, 1787, one hundred copies of the United States Constitution were ordered. Ninety-two of these copies may have been lost, destroyed or consigned to the same resting place as missing socks. I am always bedeviled by a missing sock. It is always one sock, not two matching socks but one sock gone missing.
Only eight copies of the one hundred ordered copies of the Constitution remain in existence and verified as authentic.
Two years ago, there was an estate sale at the Hayes place in North Carolina. The farm was your typical southern plantation with nothing in particular of note. While cleaning out the chairs and an aged bookcase, someone discovered an original copy of the Constitution in the debris of life, forgotten since the document was signed by Secretary of Congress Charles Thomson back in 1787.
Notice the word larger than all the rest in full, capital letters — “WE.”
Perhaps, the discovery of this cherished document from our mutual past is heaven-sent as a reminder. We Americans were never Us versus Them. From our constitutional birth, the first utterance of self-definition, our identity, was WE. It is a sign, I suggest. Providence softly speaks to us from a forgotten old southern home.
Before words of posterity, liberty, the general welfare, domestic tranquility, justice and even, and even, a more perfect Union, the Big Bang of our existence as a people was WE. May we remember the power of WE as we fight off labels of provincial identity alien to our conception as a country.
The Hayes Farm, Town of Edenton, North Carolina