U.S. Constitution speaks to us still

It’s always a pleasant surprise when, each September, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff announces its speaker for Constitution Day. Get the popcorn ready; this is going to be good! And, indeed, the speakers are always extraordinary.

Last year, it was a University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law professor named Andre’ Douglas Pond Cummings, whose presentation was given the following headline on UAPB’s news site: UALR law professor shares how hip-hop artists educate black Americans on the U.S. Constitution.

That just sounds like a fun listen — and it was. One of his quotes, again from the news site, was: “I love this Constitution, but I don’t worship it.”

This year’s speaker was a bit more buttoned-up but no less interesting. His name is Chief Judge Lavenski R. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Judge Smith was named to that high court in 2001 by President George W. Bush, and he has been the chief judge there since 2017. And he’s an Arkansan, too, having been born in Hope. He’s also the first Black jurist to hold the chief judge position on the 8th Circuit.

In some of what he said, Smith echoed Cummings’ remarks. Smith pointed out that in the preamble to the Constitution, it does not say the document was intended to create a perfect union — but a more perfect union.

“It remains imperfect,” he said. “It will never be perfect so long as it is human.”

Once you let that sink it, the idea of it being a living document springs forth, the idea that each succeeding generation looks and strives for more perfection in the document.

Some purists will take exception to that, taking the position that the Constitution should be taken at face value and only interpreted in terms of what the Founding Fathers were saying at the time. We respect that viewpoint, even if only for the fact that it adds to the conversation about our guiding document.

Smith moved across a lot of legal terrain in his talk. There was the Three-Fifths Compromise regarding the counting of slaves, meaning that each one counted only as three-fifths of a person. That was so that slave states could take advantage of that population for the purposes of legislative representation in Congress and taxation, Smith said, but it was hardly a step toward equality.

“They wanted to count them but not give them any rights,” Smith said. Smith also talked about state and federal rights, the separation of powers, the Civil War, which he described as holding a wolf by its ears — as in one can’t let go but one also can’t keep holding on forever, and when one does let go, “there’s going to be a fight.” And then he talked about voting, which he called “absolutely essential,” referencing the 15th, 19th and 20th Amendments. By the way, have you registered to vote yet? Just asking.

Perhaps his most compelling comments were aimed directly at the audience in chiding us to be better Americans, saying we “cannot remain free and ignorant.”

That is a sobering thought. One might think that now that we have a country that’s been in operation for going on 250 years, we don’t have to pay attention to it and can just go on our merry way as it autopilots itself along. But obviously we do have to pay attention. And the key to staying free, Smith said, is to stay educated, not necessarily in terms of the degrees one holds but in how aware we are of our rights and privileges. Basically, he’s saying this democracy thing takes work.

A heavy message for a heavy time.