{"id":23925,"date":"2024-02-18T20:04:24","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T02:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=23925"},"modified":"2024-02-18T20:04:29","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T02:04:29","slug":"compromise-for-the-sake-of-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=23925","title":{"rendered":"Compromise for the sake of unity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/strong>n early July 1787, the delegates who gathered in Philadelphia to create a written constitution for the new nation faced the real prospect of failure. Yet by mid-September, they had produced the charter that would be the basis for our enduring success as a nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his letter transmitting the Constitution<\/a> to Congress, George Washington attributed this surprising turn of events \u2014 what one popular account of the convention called the \u201cMiracle at Philadelphia\u201d \u2014 to the \u201cspirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our current political situation \u2014 fraught with division and partisan politics \u2014 renders indispensable those same qualities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Constitutional law scholar Derek Webb explored what Washington meant in a brilliant article that points out that the delegates to the Convention exhibited not only civility in their debates \u2014 a good first step \u2014 but more important still, they were willing to set aside parochial interests, come to a compromise, and in some instances even give up cherished liberties for the sake of unity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the \u201cmiracle of Philadelphia\u201d was not a deus ex machina. It came about only because people made an effort to understand one another and were willing to give up some things they valued dearly for the sake of unity. This is the road map for overcoming division \u2014 for achieving the miracle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cOur political system is designed for vigorous disagreement. It is not designed for irreconcilable contempt. Such contempt loosens the ties of citizenship and undermines the idea of patriotism.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn contested issues, we should seek to moderate and to unify,\u201d President Dallin H. Oaks of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that straightforward and simple directive, President Oaks captured the animating spirit that created the United States Constitution in 1787. And, without it today, the Constitution will not long survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the late Michael Gerson noted, \u201cOur political system is designed for vigorous disagreement. It is not designed for irreconcilable contempt. Such contempt loosens the ties of citizenship and undermines the idea of patriotism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why it is so troubling that in our current political moment, contempt has replaced disagreement. And this contempt, Arthur Brooks observes<\/a>, is \u201cripping our country apart. … Political scientists have found that our nation is more polarized than it has been at any time since the Civil War.\u201d NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt warns<\/a>, \u201cThere is a very good chance American democracy will fail, that … we will have a catastrophic failure of our democracy. … We just don\u2019t know what a democracy looks like when you drain all trust out of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does it mean to \u201csupport and defend\u201d the Constitution in this environment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the very least, it means that we will \u201csupport and defend\u201d the rights protected by the Constitution and the structure of government it creates. But it means\u00a0much more\u00a0than that. It means we will \u201csupport and defend\u201d the values that gave life to the process by which the Constitution was created. Compromise\u00a0for the sake of unity\u00a0is the animating spirit of the Constitution, and it is every bit as vital to its preservation in this moment of toxic political polarization as it was in the summer of 1787.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

deseret<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early July 1787, the delegates who gathered in Philadelphia to create a written constitution for the new nation faced the real prospect of failure. Yet by mid-September, they had produced the charter that would be the basis for our enduring success as a nation. In his letter transmitting the Constitution to Congress, George Washington attributed this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":23926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26683,26689,1716,26684,26687,26685,2339,26688,26686],"class_list":["post-23925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-compromise","tag-delegates","tag-face","tag-formulate","tag-gather","tag-new-nation","tag-philadelphia","tag-unite","tag-write-down-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23927,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23925\/revisions\/23927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}