The long green mall runs from Independence Hall to the National Constitution Center past a big bronze bell that has a crack. People love it. Not surprising. People are fascinated by cracks.

The bell cracked the first time the clapper struck it. Bell builders recast it with 70 percent copper, 25 percent tin and small amounts of lead, zinc, arsenic, gold and silver. It cracked again during several exuberant rings.

Up the gentle slope to the National Constitution Center, we rang in the 239th anniversary of that great document, encircled by another bronze cast: 55 delegates from 12 states, sans Rhode Island. All white men. Strong opinions. Different points of view.

They hammered out a new Constitution to replace the foundering Articles of Confederation. The required nine states ratified it one year later and the next year the new Constitution became law, replete with a Bill of Rights.

I wandered among this bronze brain trust, wondering the same thing Abigail Adams wrote to her husband eleven years earlier: “Remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.” (Not to mention indigenous tribes and enslaved Americans.)