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America has a number of Federal Holidays: the 4th of July, where we celebrate the American arrogance to tell the greatest empire at the time in the world to stuff it, and the only time we slip back into a European style of notating dates; Labor Day, when we celebrate the people that work hard to make everything function; Memorial Day, when we pay respects to the fallen in all our wars and conflicts we dare not call wars; Veterans Day, to honor those that served and survived; Juneteenth, to acknowledge the end of that horrific institution, slavery; and Thanksgiving, where we give thanks just for surviving at all, either the terrible New England winters or the crushing masses storming the department stores. We also have a few to recognize particular people: Presidents’ Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and of course Christmas.

There are also crowding the calendar a number of Recognized Days where events and concepts are honored, but not so much as to interfere with capitalist commerce with time away from laboring: Groundhog Day, which spurred a film and endless copycats of that movie; Flag Day; Pearl Harbor Day; and far too many to enumerate here, but there is one that slipped by this week that is scarcely noted, not called out in popular culture with a comedic movie, and certainly not used to generate an excuse to leave work or bash each other at football: September 17th, Constitution Day.

September 17th, 1787, the U.S. Congress achieved enough signatures to send its newly crafted Constitution out to the states for ratification, and nine months later it birthed the United States government as we know it today.

The document, like all things made by human hands, is not perfect. Far from it: there have been more than two dozen amendments to the document, and more need to be performed, but for more than two centuries it has guided this imperfect nation towards a more perfect union.

Fallible and flawed people have ignored it, twisted it, misinterpreted it, and outright violated it, but it remains one of the most brilliant governing ideas in history, inspiring countless other nations to follow in our footsteps, and today, at this critical moment in history, its fate and our future are in our hands.

A vote is coming in a few short weeks, a vote that will determine the future of that precious document, that dream made real. Vote carefully.