Rocket Ships, Computers, and the Constitution

Change your coat when it gets too small.

Dear Thomas Jefferson,

It is going to be hard for you to believe this news, but now we have rocket ships that go into outer space. We even sent spaceships with people in them to the moon. We have sent unmanned spaceships to Mars. We call the people in the space ships astronauts. Some astronauts have lived in outer space in an International Space Station for more than six months.

Unbelievable, right?!?

Almost seventy years ago, when Russia sent a rocket into outer space before the United States, everyone thought that science education needed to improve. They decided that we were in a space race, and they wanted our country to win. All of that science education has led to many miraculous things.

I have a smart phone that I carry in my pocket. You don’t even know what a telephone is, and I have one that is small enough to casually carry around with me at all times. It is quite remarkable. If you still lived at Monticello, I could call you on my telephone, and we could talk. My phone is really just a very small computer with an enormous amount of power. Someday, I will have to tell you about computers, telephones, automobiles, airplanes, electric lights, radio, and television.

Today, I want to talk to you about a letter that you wrote to Samuel Kercheval on July 12, 1816. You wrote: “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

When we get together, we will have to talk about all of the inventions, innovations, and progress that has been made in this country since you and the other Founding Fathers were creating a country. I will be interested in finding out if you think that with the advent of computers, trains, planes, and automobiles in this country you might think that our constitutional democracy is trying to wear a coat that has gotten too small.

Sincerely,

Katy Dalgleish