Calvin Coolidge, our thirtieth President, 1923-1929. Courtesy of Granger.

Mrs. Tara Ross, author and dedicated American patriot, marks the anniversary of President Coolidge’s address to the Holy Name Society in her “morning history” posts on Facebook and Twitter this week. His words on that occasion, like so much of what he had to say, are anything but shallow or platitudinous but stand prescient and needful now more than ever. Mrs. Ross reminds us of that in her comments as well. She can be found here.

“Ideals and beliefs determine the whole course of society. When there has been failure it has meant that there was no longer sacrifice made to secure success. Selfishness defeated itself. That has been the malady of every empire that has fallen, from Babylon to Russia. Where there has been success it has meant that there sacrifice has prevailed. That has been the salvation of every people, from early civilization to the present day. America was laid in the sacrifices of Pilgrim and Puritan and the colonists of that day. It was defended by the sacrifices of the Revolutionary period. It was made all free by the sacrifices of those who followed Lincoln, and insured by all who accept him. It was saved by the sacrifices of the World War.

“These are the great charities of man on which civilization has rested. They cannot be administered by government. They come from the heart of the people or they do not come at all. They are for the redemption of man. There is no other. Civilization is always on trial, testing out, not the power of material resources, but whether there be, in the heart of the people, that virtue and character which come from charity sufficient to maintain progress. When that charity fails, civilization, though it ‘speak with the tongues of men and of angels,’ is ‘becoming as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.’ Its glory has departed. Its spirit has gone out. Its life is done” — Calvin Coolidge, The Power of the Moral Law, address at the Community-Chest Dinner, Springfield, Massachusetts, October 11, 1921.

As the folks at James Madison’s Montpelier and the University of Chicago Law School have noted, the average lifespan of most constitutions stands around seventeen years. This year marks the two hundred and twenty-seventh under our Constitution. Perhaps more timely than ever before are the words Coolidge uttered in 1922 in recognition of the immense achievement this founding document still embodies, “No concourse of men assembled to promote the art of government ever attained a position which this convention is entitled to hold in the estimation of the American people. Justly, since that day they have been termed the Fathers. The result was our Federal Constitution, since aptly described as the most remarkable document ever struck off by the hand of man at a given time.”

Happy Constitution Day!