Today, Americans around the world will observe the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving is celebrated by all Americans, regardless of religion, ethnicity or creed, and this year I am delighted to celebrate it with my friends, family and colleagues in Nepal. The tradition of American Thanksgiving goes back to 1621 and the apocryphal story of European colonists in Plymouth, Massachusetts inviting members of the Native American Wampanoag tribe to join them for a festive meal to mark the new settlers' first successful autumn harvest.Since it became a national holiday many years later, Thanksgiving now marks a special moment in the American calendar. We celebrate it by gathering together to share some of the foods eaten by those first settlers, including turkey and cranberries. Every family adds a slight variation of their own, with staples of the feast including pumpkin pie, root vegetables, and green bean casserole. In my own family, we prepare a noodle kugel dish that my mother made and that I've handed down to my sons. After experiencing the Dashain and Tihar holidays, I can see that Nepalis have a similar dedication to these family gatherings and traditions.
We also gather to reflect on and give thanks for all the things in life for which we are grateful, and this year I reflect on the institutions that make the United States a strong and vibrant democracy. The first Thanksgiving was an informal meal, hastily arranged. Its journey to become a treasured American tradition mirrors the United States' nearly 400-year trek to our current democratic system, along with many trials and tribulations along the way.
Thanksgiving was celebrated by several colonies and states in our early history, but not officially as a nation until the American Continental Congress proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving in 1777. This was the same year we ratified the Articles of Confederation—our first attempt at a Constitution—and just one year after we issued our Declaration of Independence from the British Crown.
In that famous declaration, "the thirteen United States of America" proclaimed "that all men are created equal," and that certain rights, including "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" were worth the risk of forming our own, self-selected and independent system of government. These concepts, outlined in the Declaration of Independence, became the basis for our emerging democracy. However—just like in Nepal—it took some time to draft and adopt a lasting constitution.
Our first attempt, the Articles of Confederation, delivered a failure. The peoples' representatives went back to the drawing board and laboriously drafted a second constitution. The version they eventually signed and ratified has been our Constitution for the last 226 years. While considered the most democratic outline for a government of its day, America's Constitution was controversial when it was first signed in 1787, then ratified in 1788. It initially divided the nation, with citizens either extolling its virtues or decrying its shortcomings, depending on their political views. This great debate was captured in a series of persuasive articles now called the Federalist Papers.
The American Constitution, at birth, was also far from perfect. Even its drafters had doubts that it could successfully create one unified nation from a vast geography, with competing regional loyalties, unequal economic interests, and an ethnically and religiously diverse population.
Under the original terms of the American Constitution, only white male property owners had the right to vote—less than 20 percent of the American population at the time. Women, persons of color, slaves, certain religious minorities, and others would have to wait decades—and in the case of women, over 130 years—to get full voting rights in the United States. We addressed these flaws through dialogue, compromise, constitutional amendments, and an innate belief that our democratic process could deliver on the promises of Declaration of Independence.
The current US Constitution was amended 11 times in its first six years. It took 200 years of court cases to shape implementation of our Constitution, with new Supreme Court cases being heard every year to adapt the words of an old document to the modern age. Since its signing, the Constitution has been amended 27 times, proving that a constitutional democratic governance system can and should be a dynamic process, constantly striving to be more representative, inclusive, and responsive to our evolving understanding of rights and protections, and the needs of the times.
Furthermore, the American federal system has catalyzed better overall protections for ethnic, geographic, and minority interests than those originally outlined in the Constitution. For example, the movement to give women the right to vote in the United States initially began as a state-by-state effort in the late 1800s, but did not become national law until 1920. American women did not walk away from their democracy when their "unalienable rights" were not recognized. Instead, they engaged with the process and pushed for change through peaceful protests, conventions and in the courts.
President Abraham Lincoln reminded our nation during one of our darkest hours that democracy was a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," and over time, and with proper implementation, it has proven to be just that. Our Constitution has served as a solid blueprint for a government—based on the principles of separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and the guarantee and protection of basic rights—that serves its citizenry.
By the time James Monroe was elected as our fifth President in 1817, Thanksgiving had fallen by the wayside, and was no longer officially celebrated nationally. The next time it was declared a national US holiday was in 1863, by President Lincoln, who—in the Emancipation Proclamation—declared all slaves free as of January 1 of that year. Some speculate that bringing back Thanksgiving as a national holiday was a way to unite a then-divided country, torn by civil war, and still fighting over several key constitutional principles. Shortly afterwards, three more amendments were made to our Constitution, defining citizenship, abolishing slavery and protecting voting rights.
Although the parallel is imperfect, Nepal's new Constitution is generating controversy like ours did so many years ago. Americans understand that the process of creating the framework for a peaceful, unified, and democratic society is long and difficult, and that hard compromises need to be made. However, we also know that a constitution that is inclusive, representative, and guarantees basic rights is one that is worth implementing, and that self-governance, democracy, and sovereignty are principles worth protecting.
When I took the oath to become Ambassador, I swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. And today, on Thanksgiving, I give thanks for the fact that so many Americans persevered to make our federal Constitution, as it says in its opening lines, the foundation for a "more perfect union." As Nepal continues on its democratic path and works to implement a constitution that guarantees and protects the rights of all of its citizens, I urge all Nepalis to commit to the challenge of making your own federal constitution "more perfect."
The author is the US Ambassador to Nepal
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Happy Constitution Day!
