Today marks the annual day our nation reflects on the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and those who have become American citizens.

What started as an international experiment, the U.S. Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Penn., with words forming the foundation of our country: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

These words ring as true in Cullman County today as they did in Philadelphia 235 years ago.

Confirmed by historic giants such as Calvin Coolidge, John D. Rockefeller and Gen. John Pershing, a committee formed in 1917 by the Sons of the American Revolution to actively promote Constitution Day (Iowa schools first recognized it in 1911). By the late 1930s, the likes of Arthur Pine and William Randolph Hearst had picked up the mantle, with Hearst, especially, throwing the weight of his media empire behind advocating for a national holiday to celebrate citizenship.

Throughout similar variations on the theme, that’s a mantle that has been carried ever since: On Sept. 17, 2017, President Donald Trump reaffirmed the date as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day.

And that’s an affirmation we can all support. As the National Center for State Courts has rightly pointed out, from the opening of the first three words of the Preamble, “We the People,” our Constitution clearly confirms that the power of our nation comes from and lives not with a “government” or some other idea, but from individuals — from those who comprise it.