Celebrating Constitution Day 2026
Today is Constitution Day. This year’s observance carries extra weight as the nation marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence and 239 years since the signing of the U.S. Constitution. President Truman declared the first Citizenship Day in 1952, and Congress changed the designation to Constitution Day and Citizenship Day in 2004. The day’s educational mission continues to generate quality resources for teaching and scholarship in constitutional history and civil liberties.
Eric Taylor, Evening Reference Librarian and Acquisitions Assistant at the UW Law Library, has compiled some collections and events worth exploring.
A good place to start is the National Archives Museum in Washington, D.C., where original copies of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence are on permanent display in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom. Just steps away in the West Rotunda Gallery, the Road to Revolution is a rotating display documenting major milestones leading to the American Revolution and the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. For those who can’t visit in person, the Archives’ website offers extensive digital access to these collections.
The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia has a full schedule of events planned for the day and offers year-round educational programming. Of particular interest is the Center’s America at 250 Civic Toolkit, which includes a collection of essays called The Declaration Across History. The essays trace how the Declaration’s language has been invoked and reinterpreted over time, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration (“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal”) to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Also of interest are the 5 Pamphlets That Sparked the Revolution, highlighting the cheap, portable, and incendiary pamphlets by Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and others that helped build public support for independence.
The Library of Congress offers Creating the United States, an online exhibit in three parts covering the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The exhibit includes an extensive catalog of primary source items with author, title, and direct links, making it a useful reference for research and instruction.
Compiled by Eric Taylor. Adapted for WisBlawg by Bonnie Shucha.
Disclosure: This post was developed with organizational and drafting assistance from Claude AI. All content was reviewed and refined for accuracy.