From May to July 1776, delegates from 13 disparate colonies sat in a stuffy room in Philadelphia, windows sealed against eavesdroppers, sweating through coarse wool coats in the summer heat.They disagreed about nearly everything. Thomas Jefferson’s elegant and inspired draft was sliced by a quarter in debate. Delegates from the South threatened to walk unless an anti-slavery passage was removed. The 56 men (yes, all men) argued incessantly but did not leave until they had produced the most consequential political document in human history.Eleven years later, after a brutal war of independence and through the collapse of the “loose confederation of states,” the delegates returned to Philadelphia. … The same building in the same summer heat. They argued again. Disagreed again. Sweated together (again). Then, they produced the Constitution by the same method: conflict followed, eventually, by compromise.
COLORADO SHOWS WHY WE NEED PERMITTING REFORM
This is the founding tradition we have abandoned. And America’s 250th anniversary is the moment for Congress to reclaim it because conflict without compromise is chaos.
The evidence is not hard to find. Consider what has happened (or rather not happened) with a single issue: federal permitting reform.
