Monday was the 231st anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution and Historian William Turner gave a presentation in honor of Constitution Day at Hopkinsville Community College.
Turner was a professor at HCC for over 30 years and returned to the college to speak about the importance of the document and the contributions James Madison and other founding fathers made to it. He says that in the years since its inception, it has continued to serve the nation with practicality and flexibility.
He says it took multiple weeks of debate for those men to agree to what the constitution would look like and how it would shape the country. Many different versions were presented with many different ideas, including having possibly six presidents, before a compromise was struck.
James Madison is known as the Father of the Constitution and would also go on to write the Bill of Rights, says Turner, but there were many men there who had a hand in its forming, including Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Gouverneur Morris and many others.
Turner says the constitution, even though it would be hotly debated in the coming years and even amended multiple times, was the glue that bound the states together.
Constitution Day became a national observance in 2004, when Senator Robert Byrd lobbied for a bill designating September 17 as the day for citizens to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution and to learn more about our founding document.