Toward a More Perfect America

Seeking perfection is a familiar goal for me.

I am a Methodist. My father was a Methodist minister till his death in 1986. Three weeks after Daddy's death my mother accepted the pastorate of Rico United Methodist Church, where Daddy had served, beginning her own career as a Methodist minister.

For four years I attended Asbury College chapel services in Hughes Auditorium where the school motto "Holiness Unto the Lord" was emblazoned prominently.

Holiness is a major emphasis of the Methodist movement. John Wesley taught that a state of holiness or sanctification should be a goal of all Christians. He believed that it is possible for a person to reach a state of perfect alignment with the will of God. Not that his reasoning or actions would be perfect, but that his motivation would be perfect. That he would want only the will of God for his life, and so in every moment and every decision seek to do God's will.

As America's founders began to wrap up the chore of creating a Constitution for the nation, they created a Committee of Style to draft the final wording.  Gouverneur Morris is credited with writing the beautiful opening sentence which so eloquently establishes the republican genesis of our country with its first three words and then lays out the six goals of government by the People.

The first goal? A "more perfect" union. One wants to ask, can something be more than perfect?! Of course Morris was taking poetic license. He means a "more nearly perfect union". The phrasing hints at several things, I think. First that the founders thought this was a pretty good constitution. But, secondly, it was NOT perfect yet. And third, a continuing goal for Americans would be to make it ever more nearly perfect as the years go by.

I've just read Jack Rakove's Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. The creation of the Constitution was really something of a miracle. It is amazing that those men managed to pull it off. And several of the key movers like Madison (36) and Hamilton (30) were very young. Four of the delegates were still in their twenties. The big majority were under fifty. Washington himself was just 55. Old, feeble, gout-ridden Ben Franklin (81) ...

Sheila and I saw Ben Franklin's sedan chair when we visited Philadelphia a few years ago.

...arriving at Independence Hall from his home a few blocks away in his sedan chair was the only delegate older than I am now (72).

I revere the founders of 1787-89 (and continuing founders through 27 amendments) as having produced a wonderful, almost miraculous constitution, but not a perfect one. We have endured again the pain resulting from one of its major anti-republican flaws, the Electoral College.

No the American experiment in government of, by, and for the people has not reached perfection even as its 25th new decade dawns in a few hours.

May we as a nation move closer to small-r republican sanctification this year. Here's to a more perfect union in 2020.