Have you ever asked yourself one of those beauty pageant questions like, “If you could meet any person from the past or present, who would it be?” or “If you could change one thing about the country what would it be?” The answers usually have some kind of worldly or Utopian overtones about meeting Mother Theresa or saving the world from chlorofluorocarbons.

Because I have a passion for American history, I seem to ask myself, If I could live in any time, when and where would it be?”

I am 2 books into an 11-volume series called the Oxford History of the United States. Each book averages about 700 pages and covers a couple decades of American history. It would put the casual reader to sleep faster than ambien but I love it. I actually got excited several hundred pages into the first book when George Washington came onto the scene. Sick, I know.

Anyway, the answer to my question is: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from May 25 to September 17, 1787. This was the time-frame the Constitutional Convention replaced the Articles of the Confederation with the United States Constitution, thereby, creating the same government that I am so disappointed in today.

Our fledgling government came together from each of the colonies and in 4 months created the document that still governs us 223 years later. Today we have a government with one of the lowest approval ratings of all time that has wasted over a year trying to create healthcare legislation; just one small aspect of our lives.

It would have been amazing to see our original national leadership debate theories of government and, ultimately, decide that OUR government would be a democratic republic.

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