Constitutional New Year!

Welcome to 1987, the bicentennial year of the American Constitution.

There will be a lot of fussing in coming months over just how to celebrate the drafting of this remarkable document during four months of Philadelphia swelter, which saw old Ben Franklin toted daily to Independence Hall in a sedan chair, a self-deprecating George Washington presiding coolly over long hours of rancorous debate and James Madison scribbling verbatim notes of the proceedings while working deals and compromises.

But the best celebration of all will be to watch the Constitution in action. Just in the coming month:

--President Reagan will deliver his State of the Union address to Congress.

“He shall from time to time give to the Congress information on the state of the Union . . . . “ Article II, Section 3.

--The tax-reform law goes into effect. Congress again will deal with a budget deficit and haggle over spending for defense and domestic matters.

“The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and the general welfare of the United States . . . .” Article I, Section 8.

--Congressional investigators will try to untangle the Iranian arms- contra aid affair and determine whether White House aides overstepped their authority to conduct foreign policy.

“(The Congress shall have power) to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal and make rules concerning captures on land and water.” Article I, Section 8.

Ollie North, meet Geo. Washington, B. Franklin, Jemmy Madison et al.

The Framers were not certain that the Constitution would serve the fledgling nation well, but almost anything would have been better than the chaos that existed among 13 disputative semi-nation-states under the Articles of Confederation. They were not even sure that the states would swallow the idea of a strong national government.

On Sept. 18, the day after 37 delegates and Washington signed the proposed Constitution, Washington refused to speculate on its success. In a letter to his friend the Marquis de Lafayette, he said: “If it be good, I suppose it will work its way good; if bad, it will recoil on the framers.”

Indeed it has worked its way good.

Still, there will be a good bit of rhetoric this year about what the Framers intended and whether the government has not ballooned far beyond the Framers’ concept. Thomas Jefferson tried to put such arguments to rest in 1816, when he scoffed at those who “look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the Ark of the Covenant--too sacred to be touched.” The Framers knew that the future of the nation rested not just on words on paper but with the people who served under the Constitution.

While Madison and Washington considered the success of the convention a miracle, it was by no means a spontaneous event. The Constitution was the result of long hours of skilled debate, negotiation, compromise, perseverance and not a little intrigue in Philadelphia homes and taverns. Sixty votes were taken just on the method of choosing the President.

The final words drafted by Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania were elegantly simple, with a distinct absence of rhetorical flourish or visions of destiny. As author Catherine Drinker Bowen has written, the Constitution was “a working instrument of government which must be plain, brief and strategically a trifle vague in places to give play for future circumstances.”

The best celebration of the Constitution in 1987 is to keep it working its way good.