By SUZANNE DOWNING
Sept. 17, 2026 – Constitution Week begins today, Sept. 17, commemorating the day in 1787 when delegates in Philadelphia signed the United States Constitution.
Congress established Constitution Week in 1956, designating Sept. 17 through Sept. 23 as an annual opportunity for Americans to study the nation’s founding document. In 2004, Congress designated Sept. 17 as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day and required federally funded schools and federal agencies to provide educational programming about the Constitution.
The US Senate Historical Office describes the observance as an opportunity to examine how the Constitution has shaped the nation for more than two centuries.
Americans are proud of their Constitution. But do we understand it—or have we simply grown accustomed to the freedoms it protects?
We appreciate our rights, but how many of us can name them?
The Constitution has been amended 27 times. The first 10 amendments, ratified together in 1791, are known as the Bill of Rights.
The First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, the press, peaceful assembly and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. That right protects all the other rights.
The Third prohibits the government from quartering soldiers in private homes during peacetime without the owner’s consent.
The Fourth protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires warrants to be supported by probable cause.
The Fifth provides several protections for people accused of crimes, including the right against self-incrimination and double jeopardy. It also guarantees due process and requires just compensation when private property is taken for public use.
The Sixth guarantees a speedy and public trial before an impartial jury, notice of the charges, the ability to confront witnesses and the assistance of counsel.
The Seventh preserves jury trials in many federal civil cases.
The Eighth prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment.
The Ninth makes clear that listing certain rights in the Constitution does not mean the people possess no other rights.
The Tenth reserves to the states or the people powers that the Constitution neither delegates to the federal government nor prohibits to the states.
Those guarantees are often recited as a list. They establish boundaries between the citizen and the government.
The remaining 17 amendments tell much of the American story, and history.
Constitution Week is a time that reminds Americans to examine how government power is being exercised and whether constitutional boundaries are being respected.
That scrutiny applies to every constitutional right. Freedom of speech, religious exercise, privacy, property rights, firearms, due process and the protections afforded criminal defendants have all produced continuing disputes over the proper limits of government.
But most of all, it’s the right to bear arms that is always under pressure from governments, local and national. The Second Amendment remains the most vigorously contested and most continuously eroded. Licensing requirements, restrictions on particular firearms and accessories, and expansive federal regulations burden a right that the Constitution expressly says “shall not be infringed.” Democrats and leftists believe that regulations and restrictions are in order because criminals use weapons.
The federal government’s regulation of privately assembled firearms—commonly called “ghost guns”—illustrates that debate. In Bondi v. VanDerStok, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in March 2025 that certain weapons-parts kits and partially completed frames or receivers may fall within the federal Gun Control Act’s definitions of firearms. The case addressed whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had acted within authority granted by Congress; it did not decide a Second Amendment challenge to the regulation. The Supreme Court’s opinion drew opposition from gun-rights organizations that see the rule as an erosion of the right to build and possess firearms.
Constitutional questions are often decided through arguments about statutory language, agency authority, legal history and the practical application of a regulation. Citizens should understand not only the outcome of a case but also what the court did—and did not—decide.
A Constitution won’t enforce itself. Its durability depends upon elected officials who honor it, courts that apply it and citizens who know what it says and are willing to defend it.
During Constitution Week, every American should take a few minutes to read the document, and I don’t mean just the parts quoted by politicians.
Rights that are not understood are easier to weaken. Limits on government that are not defended are easier to cross. And a Constitution taken for granted can gradually become a Constitution remembered only as window dressing.
The Constitution belongs to the people. This week is a good time to get reacquainted with it.
Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.
9 thoughts on “Suzanne Downing: Our constitutional rights endure only when Americans understand them and protect them”
The cry “UNCONSTITUTIONAL!” actually means we don’t like a new violation of it — but are jolly-well happy with other violations that the electorate likes. Such as: undeclared wars, social security, national parks, welfare, college loans, grants to the arts, disaster relief. You like all that? How about constitutionalizing them with an amendment.
I wish our good Senator from Ohio would have said something, just one gol dang thing when Trump and pretty boy went to war without congressional approval which the constitution requires. But no. Weakling Dan Sullivan had his toothed suction-cup lips uncomfortably attached, Lamprey like, to Trump’s damp yellow ass (Homer Simpson).
LAMPREY EEL =TRUMP
TRUMP=POISON
NOVEMBER =PELTOLA
Evan I get that history is not your forte, so here a little reminder:
On September 18, 2001, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), granting the President the authority to use all necessary force against those responsible for the September 11 attacks and to PREVENT FUTURE ACTS OF TERRORISM. This act has been a key legal basis for U.S. military actions in the War on Terror for over two decades.
Furthermore all your whining is unrelated to the topic of the article regarding INDIVIDUAL rights.
AUMF does not supersede the constitution.
Duh! It however grants authorization for use of military force, like all those incessant drone strikes under other presidents……..
Which section of the US Constitution supports your belief that the actions taken by POTUS require congressional approval?
Under the US Constitution the President is the Commander in Chief
Article II, Section 2, Clause 1:
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
Congress is tasked with Declarations of War
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11:
[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; . . .
Congress has only declared war 11 times. Twice in WWI, Six times in WWII, once with Spain, Mexico, and Great Britain during the war of 1812.
Nice idea, but you’ve got it all wrong.
The FEDERAL constitution has ZERO AUTHORITY beyond what is listed in the document.
There is nothing about speech so the Feds can do nothing.
There is nothing about firearms so the Feds can do nothing about firearms.
There is nothing about education so the Feds can do nothing about education, or roads, or the environment, etc.
the Bill of Rights does not give us anything. All it does is re-iterate the Feds have no authority. Ignore the bill of rights as they mean nothing. The Feds have no authority, period.
ALL OTHER IS LEFT TO THE STATES (The 10th Amendment).
Alaska allows gun rights as a privilege. Alaska allows Free Speech.
Alaska has its own Constitution and no one knows what is in it. However, the STATES make up the Union. The STATES run the show (if we had Senators who represented the State).
The Federal constitution is supposed to be limited. If people, Republicans AND Dumbocrats understood that, we wouldn’t have all this socialism. We wouldn’t need an (never ratified) Income Tax. We wouldn’t be fighting over ‘federal’ funds. We couldn’t care what goes on in Minnesota or Californicate or New York.
Our ‘rights’ are natural and not given to us by anyone. WE THE PEOPLE acknowledged this 250 years ago when we told King George we had the RIGHT to self-governance.
WE Choose our government. For all too long we have chosen poorly. Then we have uneducated teachers telling us we get rights from the Federal Constitution.
Yikes! Arthur what a rant.
The Bill of Rights/US Constitution isn’t giving the Feds authority to dole out these rights as they see fit, but instead demands that the federal government DEFEND and PROTECT our individual inalienable rights, by prohibiting legislation curtailing them. Alaska does not GIVE you a gun right (bearing arms is NOT a privilege)or free speech, that’s idiotic! These rights are unassailable and quantified in the constitution of the United States. Each citizen is equally endowed with them, regardless of which state they reside in.
I agree with you that we certainly have federal sprawl, which should be curtailed, but not caring what happens in other states is shortsighted. If you think that the states are autonomous entities, you are arguing the same logic as the southern states in 1861. You think Alaska could survive as its own country?
Suzanne, please print/post my full assay ! Ours is great although more needs to be said about Alaska’s Constitution : The bell of liberty does not ring only on Constitution Day. It rings when a citizen walks into a public meeting and expects to be heard. It rings when a neighbor asks for a public record and receives an honest answer. It rings when a person petitions government and officials must explain, in writing, the authority for what they have done.
Suzanne reminds us to read the Constitution. Bob reminds us to apply its limits even when doing so costs us something. Alaska’s Declaration of Rights gives us a place to put both lessons to work. It says political power is inherent in the people. That promise belongs equally to the citizen who agrees with those in office and the citizen who demands an accounting from them.
So let this Constitution Week end with more than applause for a document. Read one right. Teach it to someone younger. Take it to a public meeting. Ask one precise question of an official, and preserve the answer. Defend a neighbor’s right to do the same, even when you disagree with that neighbor. Freedom survives when the people insist that government answer to its written limits—today, in Alaska, and throughout America. Thank you, Suzanne. Liberty Ed Martin Jr