By John Donohue –
WE THE PEOPLE! September 17th is designated as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day to commemorate the signing of the United States Constitution in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. This day and the document thus commemorated have very personal significance to me, which I will illuminate in just a bit. But first, let’s briefly consider the course of events giving rise to this great document.
The U.S. Constitution – A History
1775-1783. The American War of Independence (1775–1783) was the armed conflict in which 13 of Great Britain’s colonies in America threw off British rule leading to an independent United States of America.
1776. The casting-off of British rule was expressed in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. A careful reading of the Declaration impresses us as a type of “Bill of Outrages” against the King of England and Great Britain at that time, King George III.
1787. Eleven years following the Declaration of Independence, many of the same patriots who fought for independence on the battlefield, convened again in Philadelphia to draft a plan for governing the new nation – the Constitution of the United States. The final draft of the Constitution was signed by 39 delegates and then sent to the states for ratification.
1789. In this year, after the plan had been ratified by the 13 states, the new government was thus established.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are America’s founding documents – together addressing mankind’s most basic political questions.
1789-1791. The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution because the Constitution lacked limits on government power – a principle known as federalism. Federalists advocated for a strong national government, believing the people and states automatically kept any powers not given to the federal government in the Constitution’s text. Anti-Federalists wanted power to remain with state and local governments and favored a Bill of Rights to safeguard individual liberty.
James Madison, then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, altered the Constitution’s text where he thought appropriate. However, several representatives, led by Roger Sherman, objected, saying that Congress had no authority to change the wording of the Constitution which had already been ratified by the states in 1789. Subsequently, Madison’s changes were presented as a list of amendments that would follow Article VII – the final article of the Constitution.
1789-1791. The House approved 17 amendments; the Senate approved 12, which were sent to the states for approval in August 1789. Ultimately, ten amendments were approved (or ratified), constituting the Bill of Rights. Virginia’s legislature was the final state legislature to ratify the amendments, approving them on December 15, 1791.
In sum, our Constitution is an exemplar of profound compromise – our willingness to form a more perfect union and to agree to its specific terms. How far we have fallen in this mentality! The Constitution therefore is the central precedent as to what we must do to modify our political discourse.
The Preamble to the constitution represents our goals using such words as Form, Ensure, Provide, Promote, Secure, and “… do ordain and establish.” Again, in considering the greatness of our U.S. Constitution, do we see how distant our political discourse has fallen from our founding legacy? The Framers, the signers, the fighters – all are crying to us from their graves!
This is THE problem which tops my to-do list as a public servant and as legislator. Our efforts at progress will be worthless unless and until we restore the bonds of trust among and between all our stakeholders – how we interact with each other in public discourse, how we interact with our public sector, and how our elected representatives interact among themselves. There MUST be a NEW attitude among us – one of authentic cooperation and a constructive way of finding common ground.
“Let us begin anew;” understanding that “civility is not a sign of weakness;” and so, “let us explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems that divide us” (JFK).
Constitution Day – Personal Relevance and My Personal Reflections
Aside from this great U.S. Constitution being the Law of the Land – the week of September 17th also has a deep personal significance for me, for three reasons.
First, I am a 27-year veteran of the United States Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps – the Army’s uniformed “law firm” which is responsible for a system of military justice and other practice areas. My career formally began by taking an Oath of Enlistment on May 22, 1985 (historically, that Oath became the first “official” oath under the newly adopted U.S. Constitution); it says,
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
Second, I had been assigned to the Army’s law school, the Judge Advocate General’s School (the JAG School) in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 3, 1990 – the day after the invasion of Kuwait. The United States had responded to the Iraqi invasion by leading a massive international coalition to expel Iraqi forces through economic sanctions and military action. Many JAG lawyers and staff accompanied the coalition into that theater of operations. Back home, many US and allied senior military officers would “stop by” the JAG School to present situation reports, after action reports, and essentially rewriting the laws of land warfare.
But something special was happening at the JAG School at the same time. It was a time when nations which had been a part of the former Soviet military sphere, were working on how best to restructure their own newly independent nations – independence from the Soviet Union! “How do we do that,” was the question. So, while the Liberation of Kuwait was going on in the Middle East, back home at the JAG School, we hosted several nations now independent of the Soviet orbit, on HOW TO DRAFT A NATIONAL CONSTITUTION. I was there.
Third, I am now – much later in my life – a candidate for the office of State Representative for Wisconsin’s 46th Assembly District on the November 3, 2026, general election ballot. I will be taking another kind of Oath of Office. The Wisconsin State Constitution very simply states, “The legislative power shall be vested in a senate and assembly” (Wis. Const. art. IV, § 1).
Accordingly, in accordance with the Wisconsin Constitution Article IV, Section 28 and Wisconsin Statute § 19.01, I will say the following oath, remembering the first enlistment oath I took in 1985, and remembering the importance of the notion of Constitutions from the days following the Fall of Communism in the Soviet Union and how newly liberated nations CAME TO US to draft their constitutions.
“I … who have been elected (or appointed) to the office … but have not yet entered upon the duties thereof, swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Wisconsin, and will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of said office to the best of my ability – So help me God.”
John Donohue is running for Assembly in 46th AD – The district in the Madison area includes portions of Cottage Grove, stretching east to Lake Mills and south to Fort Atkinson.
PHONE / TEXT: 920-542-0583 – Email: CITIZENSRENEWAL@GMAIL.COM
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