Sober Expectations - Martin Diamond

In my Honors 240 class I recently read the article The Revolution Of Sober Expectations by Martin Diamond. It was given October 24, 1973. Diamond’s article talks about the two portions that made the revolution. The first portion was the creation of the Declaration of Independence and the second portion was the Constitution. He quotes Abraham Lincoln and then says "Only in the Unity of the Declaration’s principle and the Constitution’s institutions does the American Republic achieve its complete being, and Lincoln never ceased from the effort to sustain or restore that unity. We must do no less." The Declaration was finished in the year 1776 and the Constitution was finished eleven years later in the year 1787. The reason for this space of time was because the founding fathers wanted to make sure that they were making cautious and careful decisions. The founding fathers did not want to rush into anything. Even in the Declaration options were left open. When it was written they didn’t include any of the answers to how they were going to run their government or make it successful. Diamond claims that "The Declaration, strictly speaking, is neutral on the question of forms of government: any form is legitimate provided it secures equal freedom and is instituted by popular consent." Any government would be fine as long as it exercised equal freedom and everyone agreed on it. Diamond talks about how the truths we hold to be self evident will not be evident to all. The founding fathers knew that even if they did win the war that the Revolution wouldn’t be over because a government had not been set up and they people needed one. They believed that through the help of God, study, time and reworking their researched information that they could create a government that would be successful. They took old principles from other governments and organized them in a different way. The government would be able to continue to work even though mortal men are imperfect. Diamond quotes Tocqueville who says " The revolution in America was caused by a mature and thoughtful taste for freedom, not by some vague, undefined instinct for independence [that is, for absence of order and constraint]. No disorderly passions drove it on; on the contrary, it proceeded hand in hand with a love of order and legality." I really liked this quote in this article because I think that it shows how considerate the founding fathers were. They really wanted to make a government that would not fail. I think they knew and believed that America’s government would be an example government and a desired government all over the world. By sober expectations I believe that Diamond was trying to show the difficultly for these men trying to decide on a government. The moderation of how they took their time in creating this government was essential to the outcome of this country. Close to the end of his article a few sentences wrap up what he is trying to say and I think it shows the importance of these two documents and how they work together. "But now we need to train ourselves, when hearing the Declaration’s heady rhetoric of revolution and freedom or when it is foolishly cited as authority for populist passions, always soberly to see the Constitution as the necessary forming, constraining and sustaining system of government that made our revolution a blessing to mankind and not a curse. In an age of rising sobriety that spared us in our birth the disasters of revolution which have befallen so many others."