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Can you put a price on freedom?

That’s an interesting question, just barely a week after we honored the men and women who served in the military and helped protect our freedom here in the United States.

And it’s made even more interesting by a bit of news that didn’t make national headlines this week.

A rare, first printing of the U.S. Constitution sold at Sotheby’s in New York for a record-setting $43.2 million.

The buyer, Citadel hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, called his purchase a “sacred document.”

“The U.S. Constitution is a sacred document that enshrines the rights of every American and all those who aspire to be,” he said in a statement.

What some may consider mere words on parchment are, as Griffin so aptly states, much more to us in America.

The U.S. Constitution encapsulates the ideals of our Founding Fathers, the men whose vision and passions led to the birth of a nation and the formation of the world’s surviving democratic republic. The Constitution – while impossible to be all-inclusive – remains today the benchmark by which we interpret and set our laws and govern ourselves. It has grown and adapted – through amendments and court decisions – but most important, it has not broken.

And today, well into this new millennium where technology drives our lives and digital platforms provide the base for our ideas and our discourse, we still see the value in a piece of parchment written some 240 years ago.

Because wise words, a vision and hope are invaluable, no matter the age in which they’re found.

While we can put a price on an original copy of the U.S. Constitution, we can never put a price on the freedoms and opportunities it gives us.

And for that, we are thankful.