Essay Contest Winners
 Anthony
Badami
Rockhurst
High School
"Citizen Responsibility and the Constitution"
Thomas Jefferson once said: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it
expects what never was and never will be." With these words, Thomas Jefferson
made clear that freedom in the United States comes through an informed,
intelligent citizenry. Furthermore, intelligent citizens should use the
Constitution as vehicle for promoting freedom. A citizen's responsibility, then,
is to understand the rights enumerated in the Constitution. With that knowledge,
citizens can effectively protect freedom.
A knowledge of the Constitution provides citizens with a foundation for
decisions. For instance, the 15th Amendment states that neither race nor
previous condition of servitude can prohibit a citizen from voting. Armed with
this knowledge, civil rights activists in the 1960s fought for legislation that
would fully realize the implications of the amendment – that African-Americans'
right to vote be federally enforced.
Like these civil rights activists, citizens today can and should use the
Constitution as a tool to preserve freedom. But only by possessing awareness of
the Constitution can effective action be facilitated. Take for example the
women's suffrage movement. Women in the 1920s argued that state constitutional
clauses in South Carolina, Idaho and Utah, referring to voters as "he or she"
enumerated clearly women's right to vote. They fought numerous legislators to
promote their freedom. Eventually, their movement grew into national
enfranchisement for women.
These civil rights activists epitomized Jefferson's model of an informed
citizenry promoting freedom. We, as American citizens, must come to understand
the Constitution to ensure freedom for future generations.
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