September 17th is Constitution Day in America. Unlike other patriotic holidays, like Memorial Day or Independence Day, it tends to be largely ignored, possibly because no one associates Constitution Day with fireworks, a day off from work, or huge amounts of food and alcohol. Nor does it have the quirky charm of something like Groundhog Day, which at least spawned a great Bill Murray movie.

For all its drabness, Constitution Day is worth noting. It commemorates the day the U.S. Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in 1787. The holiday was created in 2004, and was the brainchild of Senator Robert Byrd. Part of his goal in creating Constitution Day was to encourage public schools to do more to teach children about the U.S. Constitution. They could use the help; a 1987 poll found that most Americans know very little about the document, with nearly half believing the Constitution contains Karl Marx's phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Only 5 percent of those asked could answer ten simple questions about the Constitution. A quarter couldn't name a single First Amendment right.

This state of ignorance is rather sad, as it is not a particularly long read. The U.S. Constitution has the honor of being the shortest written constitution of any major world government. It's about 4,400 words, which isn't so bad considering the average novel is 100,000 words or more. Citizens of India at least have a reason to be clueless about their constitution, as it runs over 117,000 words. And heaven forbid you decided to tackle the Alabama state constitution, which is over 357,000 words.

Not only is it the shortest, but the U.S. Constitution is also one of the oldest written federal constitution still in use today. (We're trumped by the constitution of San Marino, which dates back to 1600). Amazingly, it has managed to be around for 220 years with very little changes. There have only been 27 amendments, which is a pretty good record, especially if you consider that ten of them were introduced in 1789. Those ten, of course, became known as the Bill of Rights. Not all nations have a Bill of Rights (or a functional constitution, for that matter). Our cousins in the U.K., for example, never got around to writing one. The closest they have is the Human Rights Act, which took effect in 2000. While quite a bit of argument and discussion went into creating the American Bill of Rights, the British saved themselves the trouble by basically adopting the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law, arguably the largest case of plagiarism in modern politics.

The U.S. is fortunate to have a short, concise constitution that has managed to stand the test of time virtually unchanged while guiding our government for over 200 years. Perhaps this is why 91 percent of Americans in the previously mentioned survey said the Constitution is important to them, even if they are rather clueless about its contents. Since few of us celebrate Constitution Day in a beer-and-barbecue haze, perhaps we should instead take a little time and read the darn thing. Then maybe we'll understand why we think it's important.

-GIR-

Brandon Bosworth is a freelance writer living in Hawaii and is GRIH's Publications Consultant.