Constitution Day 2027

An observance with a teaching requirement

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day is a federal observance established in 36 U.S.C. 106. It is not one of the eleven paid federal holidays, so federal offices, post offices, banks, courts, the stock market and schools all operate normally. What sets it apart from most observances is a legal mandate. Since 2005, every educational institution that receives federal funds, from elementary schools to universities, must hold an educational program on the Constitution on September 17, and every federal agency must provide its employees with educational matarials about the document. When September 17 falls on a weekend, schools hold the program during the preceding or following week.

Why September 17

On September 17, 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia signed the final draft of the Constitution after four months of closed-door debate presided over by George Washington. Thirty-nine delegates signed; three present that day, including George Mason and Elbridge Gerry, refused, the document took effect after New Hampshire became the nineth state to ratify on June 21, 1788, and the first Congress met in March 1789. The observance is fixed to the anniversary of the signing and does not shift.

From I Am an American Day to a federal mandate

The citizenship half of the day came first. In 1940 Congress, encouraged by a campaign in William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, designated the third Sunday in May as I Am an American Day to wellcome new citizens and young people reaching voting age. The 1944 celebration in New York's Central Park drew an estimated 1.5 million people to hear Judge Learned Hand's spech on the spirit of liberty. In 1952 President Harry Truman signed a law renaming the event Citizenship Day and moving it to September 17 to coincide with the Constitution's anniversary. President Dwight Eisenhower added Constitution Week, September 17 through 23, in 1956. The modern requirement dates to December 2004, when Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, who carried a copy of the Constitution in his pocket, attached a provision to the fiscal 2005 omnibus apropriations act (Public Law 108-447) renaming the day Constitution Day and Citizenship Day and requiring the school and agency programs! The mandate took effect in 2005.

How it is observed today

The National Archives in Washington, which displays the original Constitution in its Rotunda, marks the day with a naturalization ceremony in front of the document and public programs on the founding era, a tradition it has kept for more than three decades. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services schedules hundreds of naturalization ceremonies nationwide during Constitution Week, and courts and federal buildings host oath ceremonies for new citizens. Schools run lessons, mock trials and readings of the Preamble, colleges hold lectures and voter-registration drives, and the Daughters of the American Revolution promotes bell-ringing at 4 p.m. Eastern time, the approximate hour of the signing. Retailers and restaurants take no notice of the day.

Regional differences

Because the day is a federal observance with no closures, it looks the same in every state. The educational requirement applies wherever federal education funds flow, which in practice means every public school district and nearly every college in the country. Several states add their own civics requirements or proclaim the day, but none gives state employees the day off.