Copying the Constitution

Monday, September 14, 1-4pm @ Benzie Shores District Library

In a partnership with Michigan Writers and the Benzie Shores District Library, the Elberta Heritage Center invites the public to copy by hand (yes, copy by hand) the Constitution of the United States. In light of the sometimes diffuse language associated with today’s political discourse, Michigan Writers proposes we go back to basics. We invite the community to participate in reclaiming the language on which democracy was built. Let’s copy the constitution. We hope that shifting the focus to these particularly important words will reacquaint all of us with what the Constitution promises.

Sounds like a big project? Turns out, our most important “rights document,” the Constitution of the United States, is a mere 7600 words including the 27 amendments. Inspired by a one-page article in the New Yorker about people who have hand-copied various “rights documents,” and one particular artist who has hand-copied the U.S. Constitution seven times, we propose to do the same, but in shared community.  Participants in this exercise will be assigned a section of the Constitution, will copy it word for word in their own hand, post it in the room in all our various hand-written scrawls (all scrawls are welcome!), and when it is reassembled, read it aloud. We hope this might become a reclamation of the principles of our country, may place us in closer kinship with those early writers and thinkers, and refresh our understanding of the core document of democracy. A talk back will follow the copying and reading of the document.