Read Your Constitution!

I was embarrassed today in a meeting with my Delegate.  I live in the Commonwealth of Virginia and he and another Delegate were holding a “town hall” style meeting in preparation to heading off to Richmond, Virginia next week for the opening of the General Assembly. 

The issue of “Eminent Domain” came up in the context of an amendment to our Commonwealth Constitution.  Our Delegate was patiently explaining how that process works when he paused and said “Okay how many of you have read the Virginia Constitution?”  I was embarrassed, I hadn’t and neither had the rest of the room.  I had a copy of the United States Constitution in my hip pocket, but I hadn’t read my own State’s Constitution.  You see we in the shadow of Washington, DC are so preoccupied with National issues that sometimes we forget that first and foremost we are Virginians.  I intend to remedy that fact. 

Just look how elegantly that document begins:

ARTICLE I

Bill of Rights 

 

A DECLARATION OF RIGHTS made by the good people of Virginia in the exercise of their sovereign powers, which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government.


Section 1. Equality and rights of men.

That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

I ordered my own copy today while I read it on-line.  How many of you are familiar with your own State’s Constitution?