Constitution of the United States

In Mary Antin's account of her journey from the Russian Pale of Settlement to the promise of America, the Constitution of the United States stands as the central symbol of the freedom and justice that the Old World denied her. It is not a distant legal document but a living force that she invokes in moments of personal crisis and national pride, contrasting sharply with the oppressive laws of the Russian Empire that confined Jews to the Pale of Settlement. The Constitution represents not merely a set of laws but a promise of equality, justice, and self-determination that shapes Mary's identity and her family's trajectory in America.

The Constitution as the Antithesis of Russian Oppression

The Constitution's significance is defined by its stark opposition to the legal reality of Russia, where the Czar's authority was absolute and arbitrary. Mary learned from her earliest childhood that Polotzk, Vitebsk, Vilna, and other places were grouped together as the "Pale of Settlement," and within this area the Czar commanded her to stay, with her father and mother and friends, and all other people like them. They must not be found outside the Pale, because they were Jews. This was the first lesson a little girl in Polotzk had to learn, a knowledge that trickled into her consciousness drop by drop until she fully understood that she was a prisoner, and the shackles had grown familiar to her flesh. The world was divided into Jews and Gentiles, and the law of the land enforced this division.

The Russian legal system was not merely restrictive but actively predatory, extracting its dues from the Jewish population without regard for the ruin it caused. Mary recounts the case of a poor locksmith who owed the Czar three hundred rubles because his brother had escaped from Russia before serving his term in the army. There was no such fine for Gentiles, only for Jews, and the whole family was liable. The police came and attached his household goods, everything he had, including his young bride's trousseau, and the sale of the goods brought thirty-five rubles. After a year's time the police came again, looking for the balance of the Czar's dues, and put their seal on everything they found. The bride was in bed with her first baby, a boy, and the circumcision was to be next day; the police did not leave a sheet to wrap the child in when he was handed up for the operation. This was the law of the land that the Constitution of the United States would replace.

The burden of Russian law extended to every aspect of Jewish life, including military service, which was a serious burden for reasons beyond piety. Most men of twenty-one, the age of conscription, were already married and had children, and during their absence their families suffered and their business often was ruined. At the end of their term they were beggars, sent home from their military post with a free ticket for the return journey and a few kopecks a day for expenses, hurried back into the Pale like escaped prisoners. The Czar was done with them, and if within a limited time they were found outside the Pale, they would be seized and sent home in chains. The taxes were equally relentless: taxes on houses, taxes on rents, taxes on business, taxes on profits, with the town, the county, and the central government all collecting, and the chief of police always present. Even a railroad bridge across the Dvina, while open to the military, could be used by the people only by individual permission. This was the world of arbitrary power and endless exaction that the Constitution of the United States would replace with a system of laws that applied equally to all.

The Constitution as the Foundation of American Citizenship

For Mary's father, the Constitution was the very reason for his emigration. Almost his first act on landing on American soil, three years before he conducted his children to school, had been his application for naturalization. He had taken the remaining steps in the process with eager promptness, and at the earliest moment allowed by the law, he became a citizen of the United States. The boasted freedom of the New World meant to him far more than the right to reside, travel, and work wherever he pleased; it meant the freedom to speak his thoughts, to throw off the shackles of superstition, to test his own fate, unhindered by political or religious tyranny. He was only a young man when he landed, thirty-two, and most of his life he had been held in leading-strings; he was hungry for his untasted manhood. The Constitution was the instrument that promised to satisfy this hunger, offering him a legal status that the Russian Empire could never grant a Jew.

The Constitution's promise of equality was tested and confirmed in Mary's own experience in the courtroom. When a great, hulky colored boy, who was the torment of the neighborhood, treated her roughly while she was playing on the street, her father had him arrested and brought to court. The boy was locked up overnight, and he emerged from his brief imprisonment with a respect for the rights and persons of his neighbors. But what interested Mary more than her revenge on a bully was what she saw of the way in which justice was actually administered in the United States. Here they were gathered in the little courtroom, bearded Arlington Street against wool-headed Arlington Street; accused and accuser, witnesses, sympathizers, sight-seers, and all. Nobody cringed, nobody was bullied, nobody lied who didn't want to. They were all free, and all treated equally, just as it said in the Constitution. The evil-doer was actually punished, and not the victim, as might very easily happen in a similar case in Russia. "Liberty and justice for all," she exulted, and three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue. This was the Constitution in action, a living proof that the law protected the weak as well as the strong.

The Constitution as the Guarantor of Freedom of Conscience

The Constitution also guaranteed the freedom of conscience that was central to Mary's family's rejection of religious orthodoxy. When she was surprised into a dispute in the schoolyard, with Rachel and Kitty and Maggie, Sadie and Annie and Beckie making a circle around her, pressing her with questions, mocking her, and threatening her with hell flames and utter extinction, she held her ground against them all obstinately enough. She glibly repeated phrases she had heard her father use, but she had no real understanding of his atheistic doctrines. As the number of her opponents grew, and she saw how unanimously they condemned her, her indifference turned into a heat of indignation. The actual point at issue was as little as ever to her, but she perceived that a crowd of Free Americans were disputing the right of a Fellow Citizen to have any kind of God she chose. She knew, from her father's teaching, that this persecution was contrary to the Constitution of the United States, and she held her ground as befitted the defender of a cause. George Washington would not have treated her as Rachel Goldstein and Kitty Maloney were doing. "This is a free country," she reminded them in the middle of the argument. The Constitution was her shield against the tyranny of the majority, the legal guarantee that her unorthodox beliefs were as protected as the most conventional piety.

The teacher, Miss Bland, confirmed this interpretation when she made Mary understand, somewhat as Miss Dillingham had done on the occasion of her whispering during prayer, that it was proper American conduct to avoid religious arguments on school territory. Mary felt honored by this private initiation into the doctrine of the separation of Church and State, and she went to her seat with a good deal of dignity, her alarm about the safety of the Constitution allayed by the teacher's calmness. The Constitution was not merely a document that protected her from the state; it also protected the state from religious conflict, establishing a framework in which all beliefs could coexist. This was a radical departure from the Russian system, where the state enforced religious conformity and punished deviation.

The Constitution as the Route to a Better Life

The Constitution was also the route by which Mary's family escaped the slums of Boston. After Dover Street came Applepie Alley, Letterbox Lane, and other evil corners of the slums of Boston, till it must have looked to their neighbors as if they meant to go on forever exploring the underworld. But they found a short-cut, and the route they took from the tenements of the stifling alleys to a darling cottage of their own, where the sun shines in at every window, and the green grass runs up to their very doorstep, was surveyed by the Pilgrim Fathers, who transcribed their field notes on a very fine parchment and called it the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution was not just a legal document; it was a map to a better life, a promise that hard work and worthiness would be rewarded with the opportunity to own land and enjoy the fruits of one's labor. Mary reflected that in America a child of the slums owns the land and all that is good in it. All the beautiful things she saw belonged to her, if she wanted to use them; all the beautiful things she desired approached her. She did not need to seek her kingdom. She had only to be worthy, and it came to her, even on Dover Street. The Constitution was the guarantee of this promise, the foundation upon which her American dream was built.

The Constitution as the Embodiment of American Ideals

Throughout her memoir, the Constitution of the United States serves as the embodiment of the American ideals that Mary and her family embraced. It is the antithesis of the Czar's arbitrary power, the guarantor of equality before the law, the protector of freedom of conscience, and the route to a better life. It is a document that she invokes with reverence and confidence, knowing that it will protect her rights and uphold her dignity. The Constitution is not a distant abstraction but a living presence in her life, shaping her identity as an American and her faith in the promise of the New World. It is the foundation of her new citizenship, the symbol of her liberation from the shackles of the Pale, and the promise of a future in which she can be free, equal, and self-determining. The Constitution is, in the end, the very definition of what it means to be an American, and Mary Antin embraces it with all her heart.