‘A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation’

This installment of ‘Movies for Young Adults’ ponders how the fine art of balance guided the framers of the US Constitution.

“Signing of the Constitution of the United States on September 17, 1787,” 1940, by Howard Chandler Christy. The Indiana Reporter. This event becomes alive with the documentary "A More Perfect Union." Public Domain

Are you looking to recommend a film marking America’s 250 years of independence to high schoolers? Consider this one about the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. It’s an anatomy of a democracy, not just a document.

Its lesson? It’s one thing to declare freedom, it’s quite another deciding what to do with it.

The founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to declare America as “Free and Independent States.” But barring a few founders who remained involved, the rest had to leave it to the many others who drafted the Constitution in 1787 to decide how to structure the new government. Director Peter N. Johnson’s outstanding film dramatizes the struggles, sacrifices, and successes of those who drafted that text.

The film draws its name from the Preamble’s gloriously aspirational phrase, “a more perfect Union,” that blends fierce national pride with faith-inspired humility.

Holding the Union Together

A decade after the Declaration was written, patriot James Madison laments that states once united in breaking free of Britain, are now divided. Dangerously for the union, the states toyed with primacy on questions of foreign policy, defense, and trade. To him, that’s the crude equivalent of children, not parents, calling the shots on a family’s earnings, finances, and security.

A portrait of James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, by John Vanderlyn. Public Domain

When America’s first ambassador to Britain, John Adams, requests fairer tariffs, Britain’s response is smug: In the absence of a strong federal government to represent it globally, America’s in no position to ensure fairness. Britain and the world will keep exploiting the edge that America’s states want over each other at the expense of the union. Self-interest will govern national sovereignty, England hopes.

Back home, Madison, who’d go on to become president, wonders how self-interest can shape national sovereignty if a nation has no sense of self in the first place. So, with quiet support from the likes of Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, he convenes a constitutional convention; a referendum on the Articles of Confederation of 1777.

Madison’s tactics honor the value of balance that’s needed with a strong central government. Yet states then cling to the sovereignty that the Articles grant them. So, he convinces convention delegates that the Articles must be replaced, not merely reformed, to deliver a strong and just federal government, or the union will tear itself apart, to the glee of nations waiting for America to fail.

We, the People

Through riveting fireside chats and speeches here, authors of the Constitution warn audiences, as much as themselves, not to make a fetish of freedom.

During one heated argument, Franklin reminds the gathering of their divine mandate and need to count on divine providence. He’s hinting that human rights (life, free speech, dignity, equality) are derived not absolute. When Washington is on his knees, alone in his room, hands folded, head bowed, eyes closed, he wordlessly demonstrates who these rights are derived from.

Through the exceptional text they eventually endorse, the delegates tell their own constituents that human freedoms are relative, lying within a hierarchy of freedoms. If that hierarchy crumbles, all freedoms it protects crumble.

“Foundation of the American Government,” 1925, by John Henry Hintermeister. George Washington witnesses Gouverneur Morris sign the Constitution while Madison sits in front of Benjamin Franklin and next to Robert Morris. Public Domain

Here, one delegate says, “The business of government is compromise.” True, but principled balance, not unprincipled compromise counts.

Rightly, delegates rely on truth and justice as their compass, to embed checks and balances between upper and lower houses of Congress, and between legislative, executive, and judicial branches. They seek equilibrium between votes-per-state based on population and regardless of it. They discuss who in public office must be appointed, and who elected.

Yes, all delegates are representatives. But Madison’s unobtrusive steering of the convention hints at what representation means. It means being mindful of the ordinary voter, who hasn’t time or money to lobby for himself or his cause.

In things that matter most to the union, it means being American, not merely Virginian, Georgian, or Pennsylvanian. Delaware’s John Dickinson pleads, “Some of us act as though this is some debating contest, it is not. The life of the union is at stake.”

John Dickinson as governor of Delaware. Public Domain

Not everyone championing state sovereignty on state-level issues is a separatist, and not everyone championing a strong federal government is a nationalist. The men here show that the centrifugal and centripetal forces in a democracy can be complementary, not mutually exclusive.

Judiciously, older, wiser colleagues, Washington and Franklin, cajole the younger Madison to cede some of his idealism if he wants results. Democracy, they suggest, is messy because it accounts for a level of pettiness, short-termism, and one-upmanship. Madison learns quickly enough that it’s within and with contradictions, not without them, that democracy thrives.

Washington becomes the first president only after the convention. But there’s a moment here before heading to the convention that he consciously sheds a walking stick he’s been using to recover from a bout of illness. Not only must he be strong, but he must also be seen to be strong. A limping, stuttering, floundering leader doesn’t inspire confidence, or trust.

Drawing From Traditional Sources

No, nations don’t have to create everything from scratch. They can export ideas they’ve imported and refined.

Madison drew inspiration from ancient texts about governance, including from British, Graeco-Roman, and European traditions. Equally, framers of constitutions in Latin America, Asia, China, Russia, Australia, Europe, and Africa, have implicitly and explicitly credited the U.S. Constitution’s ethos, structure, and language, in drafting their own. Is the American Constitution less American because it started with Madison’s Virginia Plan?

Power may well be associated with a raw display of that power, military or otherwise. But real authority (and the respect it commands) flows from restraint. A nation that can’t self-govern loses respect in the community of nations. So, delegates here prove that it’s by cleaving to their better selves that they rise above squabbling to back the noblest causes, not bereft of imperfections but transcending them.

The opening shot shows Madison purposefully lifting a quill, dipping it in ink, removing excess ink on the inkpot rim, before putting quill to paper. You see him lighting a candle before an evening’s stretch of reading, research, and reflection. The filmmakers are saying, democracy thrives not when citizens speak and write but do so with enough thought and care for other citizens.

Here, state representatives robustly champion their states, but they’re respectful when it comes to federal matters. It’s why Madison confesses his fondness for the Preamble’s turn of phrase, “Not we the states, but we the people.”

This is a reminder, if one was needed, that the point of government, federal or state, is to serve the people. Anything less is realpolitik posturing as principle.

Check the Internet Movie Database website for plot summary, cast, reviews, and ratings. You can watch “A More Perfect Union” on Amazon, YouTube, and DVD. 

These reflective articles may interest parents, caretakers, or educators of young adults, seeking great movies to watch together or recommend. They’re about films that, when viewed thoughtfully, nudge young people to be better versions of themselves. 

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