Celebrate freedom today ....& for as long we can keep it

Did you know that today is Constitution Day?!

... a day to celebrate the creation of the U.S. Constitution,
signed on September 17, 1787.

***

In 1787, shortly after the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, a woman interested in the proceedings approached Benjamin Franklin. "Well, doctor," she asked, "what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" The venerable champion of American liberty replied, "A republic, madame, if you can keep it."

via

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."

Patrick Henry

***

Hmm. I find it interesting & ironic that today is also the anniversary of the bloodiest one-day battle in American history:

The Battle of Antietam
September 17 1862

& that ...

By the time the sun went down, both armies still held their ground, despite staggering combined casualties--nearly 23,000 of the 100,000 soldiers engaged, including almost 4,000 dead. .... On the morning of September 18, both sides gathered their wounded and buried their dead. That night, Lee turned his forces back to Virginia. His retreat gave President Lincoln the moment he had been waiting for to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, a historic document that turned the Union effort in the Civil War into a fight for the abolition of slavery.

via

"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them."

— Franklin D. Roosevelt