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feed·back (fėd'bāk'), n., the return of information about the result of a process or activity; an evaluative response: asked the students for feedback on the new curriculum. -- dictionary.com Here's what people had to say about... "Put the right document in our museum"
Mark E. Dixon's April 3 Commentary Page piece praises the Declaration of Independence at the expense of the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Dixon prefers statements of sentiment over "politics," but sentiment never fed the bulldog. There are good reasons why our founders preferred limitations both on direct popular representation and on universal voting rights. In local politics, they believed that landowners would consider legislation more carefully than those who could leave the community at any time. They also believed that people with experience in administering their own business affairs possessed superior judgment about government generally. Our founders were not establishing a government to serve private interests, or even to mediate them. They believed instead that governments serve the public good and, therefore, require wise rather than crafty governors. Mr. Dixon also forgets that we are the United States of America, a federal arrangement, and not the people of America directly. Our founders believed in the diversity of the states. Liberty for them required preserving these differences and not surrendering them to some vast and distant government. Mr. Dixon objects to the "three-fifths of a man compromise" in the Constitution. However, it was the slave-holding states that voted for full representation of slaves, while the North supported no representation as a way to limit the political power of the South -- a splendid example of the political complexity of historical documents. Mr. Dixon might also recall that the Continental Congress, in adopting Jefferson's Declaration, suppressed his passage attacking slavery. The Declaration itself is hardly free from politics and compromise. The Declaration of Independence proclaims that "all men are created equal." However, Jefferson did not write what Dixon reads. The Declaration says that human beings are equal in respect to their rights but not otherwise. Years later, Lincoln was careful to say that while he and a slave have equal rights, they were not equal in talents or capacities -- an opinion that would be labeled harshly in our own time. The Constitution commands our respect precisely because it represents, with its limitations, a real engagement with the possible in pursuit of justice. Stephen Zelnick, Philadelphia (The writer is director of the Intellectual Heritage Program at Temple University.)
We were interested in Mark Dixon's Commentary Page article contrasting the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and suggesting that the Declaration of Independence, rather than the Constitution, is our fundamental statement of national purpose, agreed upon by all Americans, and therefore is the document appropriate for a museum on Independence Mall. We appreciate very much the question he has raised and his unusual analysis of what we ordinarily take for granted while at the same time considering it sancrosanct. Mark Dixon states that the core notion of the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal," is what inspires us and sets us apart as a nation. He goes on to point out that the Constitution, which we revere so highly, is indeed the product of politics and compromise -- essentially a means to the end of preserving our union and our freedoms. At this time in our national life, a debate is going on about the use of government, and politics has been given a bad name. Our fundamental beliefs in freedom and equality have to be applied to new technologies and new problems. It's a great time to think newly about our basic purpose, as stated in the Declaration, and our basic means, the Constitution. Alice and Fred Wilson, Merchantville, N.J.
 Mark
E. Dixon
757 Upper Gulph Road
Wayne, PA 19087-2022
USA
610-971-0649
dixon_mark@verizon.net
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The Declaration and the Constitution