For most of us, the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence summarize what we think of as being distinctly "American" values. "America is the only country in the world that is founded on a creed," G.K. Chesterton observed in What I Saw in America, written around the turn of the century. "That creed is set forth with theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence...It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just." Letters to the Editor defending individual rights and condemning inequality still appear in the nation's newspapers every day. We remain quite clear as to what we expect from America as individuals.

What, however, provides a basis for collective action in this country--what we call "community?" To the extent that social scientists have focused any attention on this problem, they usually have turned to race, religion, ethnic backgrounds, or regional and local histories for answers. While these influences are undeniably powerful, they leave us with no common ground among the diverse groups that make up America as a whole. We are left without a civic framework for community that we all might be expected to share.

It was, in part, to address this problem that the National Endowment for the Humanities launched its National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity The materials distributed in connection with the Conversation ask us to examine, "What holds our diverse society together? What are our values--shared and not shared? How have we established common ground or resolved differences in the past? Can we identify those values and commitments that we need to share as a successful society?"

At a national meeting related to the National Conversation, Sheldon Hackney, Chairman of the Endowment, elaborated further on these questions. "A central issue," he observed in response to a question about the program, is "whether a shared commitment to America's civic values can provide a sufficient basis for community, or whether some other set of cultural characteristics--common language, similar attitudes toward family and work, religious faith--is necessary as well." In effect, the Chairman Hackney was asking us to confront the problem of developing a civic framework for community directly.

For the Institute for the Study of Civic Values , this was a welcome challenge. Over the past two decades, we have been conducting workshops and seminars aimed at helping neighborhood leaders and activists in Philadelphia tackle the serious problems facing cities throughout the country--blight, crime, unemployment, illiteracy, and pervasive social unrest. In this regard, we have functioned as a think-tank, a training center, and a support system for community groups throughout the City. Indeed, we have largely shaped Philadelphia's policies and programs in community development over the past fifteen years.

What distinguishes us from most other urban planning and policy centers, however, is our explicit use of principles in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as a civic framework for community. For us, using civic values to help Americans build community in neighborhoods is not just a theory. It is what we do. The NEH National Conversation now gives us an opportunity to share with grassroots leaders and activists throughout the United States how we do it.

One obvious source is the "right of people peaceably to assemble" set forth in the First Amendment. As late as 1833, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that the United States was still the "only country on the face of the earth where the citizens enjoy unlimited freedom of association for political purposes." Unfortunately, the freedom of assembly is not treated with same reverence today--especially in comparison to the freedom of speech, press, and religion that we read about all the time. That it appears in the First Amendment suggests the importance which early Americans attached to collective activity, even if many of us today would like to think of them all as rugged individualists.

Even more compelling is the Preamble to the Constitution itself. Here is where the framers set forth principles of collective action. "We the people of the United States," it proclaims--in order to "form a more perfect union"--"establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" do "ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America."

To be sure, the Constitution itself specifies only how government should work to achieve these goals. Since "we the people" merely delegate authority to those who run the government, however, the ultimate responsibility falls upon us. Alexander Hamilton even tried to argue in The Federalist Papers that the phrase, "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" could serve as a Bill of Rights. "Here is a better recognition of popular rights," he insisted, "than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principle figure in several of our State bills of rights and which would sound much better in a treatise on ethics than in a constitution of government." The argument was not persuasive, but it did suggest the importance that the framers attached to the Preamble as a shared vision not only for the government, but for the rest of us..

We do invoke the Preamble from time to time. "We the people" has been a rallying cry of movements of every persuasion. "To promote the general welfare" is less familiar, but the notion of the "public good" or "common good" has been a powerful vision ever since Madison himself used it in The Federalist Papers. The "common defense," "domestic tranquillity," and "the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" have all found a place within the fabric of our public debate.

In short, if we can defend human equality and individual rights in the name of the Declaration of Independence, we can use the Preamble to the Constitution to establish a civic framework for community. Given the constant references to the Preamble throughout the early years of Republic, it is reasonable to assume that this is what the framers intended.

Since 1993, the Institute has been experimenting in Philadelphia, appropriately, with the use of the Preamble to build community among diverse groups of people. Initially, we developed a discussion guide to help homeowners and public housing residents negotiate a "social contract" for neighborhood improvement in a South Philadelphia neighborhood known as Queen Village, built entirely around these principles. "Who are ‘we the people' of the neighborhood?" we asked. "What must we do to ‘secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity'?" How can citizens, businesses, and government work together ‘to promote the general welfare?'"

Despite significant apparent differences among the various participants, it worked. All residents agreed to cooperate in fighting crime, improving the schools, and in supporting a summer camp for neighborhood kids. Significantly, when a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed people who drafted the social contract several weeks later, they all cited the use of the Preamble as being instrumental in helping them realize how much they shared. This response gave us confidence that we could use this approach almost anywhere where diverse groups at least were willing to explore working together.

The Institute has negotiated several more social contracts in Philadelphia on this basis since the first one, as part of what we call the, Social Contract Project . Most significant has been a "Block Club Social Contract" drafted in 1994 by community leaders and activists from all parts of the City. The preamble to this social contract suggests how important the Preamble to the Constitution was in putting it together:

We, the residents of Philadelphia's neighborhoods--block captains, members of block associations, and participants in agencies and organizations that support them--pledge to work together to build communities that are attractive, safe, economically viable, and decent places in which to live and raise children. We affirm that all residents are part of "we, the people," with the rights and responsibilities of members of a free society. We will work to promote harmony, responsibility, and cooperation in the neighborhoods among homeowners, tenants, and residents of publicly assisted housing. We further commit to help all residents acquire the education and training needed to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." To this end, we seek to "promote the general welfare" throughout the City of Philadelphia through the fulfillment of the following social contract.

The Institute now conducts city-wide meetings every month aimed at helping block captains, neighborhood leaders, and city officials implement the Block Club Social Contract. More than 35 grassroots organizations and hundreds of block associations now support it. Once again we are demonstrating the power of using America's historic ideals as a civic framework for community.

The discussion guide that we developed for the Philadelphia program merely invoked principles from the Preamble, however. It did little to elaborate on what they have meant over the years. Given the enormous conflicts now facing the country, this is now essential.. Everywhere, we are besieged with proposals to change the fundamental relationship between the federal government and the people and even our mutual obligations to one another. Do we still share the basic ideals of the Preamble--that "we the people" work through government to "insure domestic tranquillity," "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," and "promote the general welfare." Or are we abandoning them? The only way to answer this question is to apply these principles to the issues facing communities and the country today.

Most planning manuals take values for granted. They assume that people in most communities already agree on basic principles and that we merely need to apply them to problems like abandoned housing or crime. If the assumption is correct, the process works. If there are underlying conflicts, however, it does not. People get bogged down in arguments over specific issues that really reflect fundamental differences over what the community should be. Or, alternatively, one group simply starts developing elaborate plans and projects in the name of everyone, only to face protests from segments of the neighborhood who have been ignored. At that point, the process has to start all over again.

Here, we insist that anyone involved in neighborhood planning needs to examine the fabric of the community carefully before getting into any specific area of concern. Especially in cities, there is likely to be considerable diversity. It may even appear to present insurmountable obstacles to achieving agreement on anything. Our experience in Philadelphia suggests, however, that differences do not necessarily create divisions, if people treat one another with respect. This is what taking the Preamble to the Constitution seriously helps us do.

There are five broad questions to be considered here:

1. Who are "we the people" of the neighborhood? What are their backgrounds, their views, their relationships with one another. Do people, in fact, respect one another as equal partners in making the community work?

2. What values do you share as citizens that might help you create a "more perfect union?" Especially if the neighborhood is diverse, is a shared commitment to America's civic ideals a sufficient basis for building community among the people who live and work there?

3. Is there "domestic tranquillity" among the distinct organizations within the neighborhood, or are they in constant conflict with one another? What is the nature of these conflicts? Can they be resolved? On what basis?

4. What needs to happen in the neighborhood to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity?" What are the major obstacles to "the blessings of liberty" and how might they be overcome? What specific strategies and programs are needed?

5. How can everyone with a stake in the neighborhood be persuaded to "promote the general welfare" as you have defined it? What should individuals, organizations, businesses, agencies, and government be doing to achieve the goals that you have set for yourselves?

For the principles of the Preamble under consideration, we provide the following:

• Questions that apply the principle to the process of building community.

• Passages from historic documents and speeches that demonstrate how Americans have interpreted the principle in the past.

• Examples of federal laws or programs that were established to advance the principle throughout the country.

How you use this manual will reflect the kind of plan that you are trying to develop. The groups that negotiated social contracts in Philadelphia involved no more than 25 to 30 people at any given session, representing the varied interests of the neighborhood or neighborhoods that they represented. Whatever you do, however, keep in mind that our primary focus here is to help people of varying backgrounds and circumstances establish common ground. Whatever you consider your community to be, everyone needs to be included in the process.

Along with this Internet discussion guide, there is a printed version of "Building Community in the American Tradition" available through the Institute for the Study of Civic Values. Call 215-238-1434 for further information on availability and cost. We will also be developing an Internet seminar to support those who want to use this guide in their own communities.

A great many people contributed to the development of this project.

Wilson Carey McWilliams, William Sullivan, Rosemary Bray, Tracy Taft, and Charles Buki offered invaluable advice on the theoretical issues and traditions associated with the Preamble.

A number of community development directors associated with the National Community Development Association provided extraordinarily useful commentary on the program at the 1995 National Community Development Institute, and I am indebted to John Sasso, Jan Shapin, and Dianne Taylor for making this possible.

The remarkable network of activists, theorists, and public officials who participate in the Institute's "civic-values" Internet mailing list have contributed a great deal to my own understanding of how people throughout the country are grappling with the problem of building community in America.

We owe a tremendous debt to all those in Philadelphia who contributed to the Social Contract Project during its initial period--Corestates Financial, the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Barra Foundation, PNC Financial, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, and the Office of Housing and Community Development--along with hundreds of neighborhood leaders and activists who worked on the first neighborhood social contracts that we developed. Additionally, we are indebted to the Surdna Foundation for its support in developing this web site and an email list for groups that want to test this discussion guide in their own communities.

Above all, we must thank Sheldon Hackney and to the National Endowment for the Humanities for the "National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity" which has provided financial support for this project and for many other worthy programs of this kind. The passion for ideals and ideas shared by those who created America has found a new home.

Edward Schwartz
President, Institute for the Study of Civic Values
January, 1996