Congress I

Writing Center:  Fiona, Nadeem, Miriam, and Pippa have all taken this course.

Research

• Evaluating sources and another guide
• An example?
• Tracing a claim:  a case study
• Sources on Congress

Consequences of the Three-Fifths Clause.  From William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery:

Five of the first seven presidents were slaveholders, for thirty-two of the nation’s first thirty-six years forty of its first forty-eight, fifty of its first sixty four, the nation’s president was a slaveholder. The powerful office of Speaker of the House was held by a slaveholder for twenty-eight of the nation’s first thirty-five years. The president pro tem of the Senate was virtually always a slaveholder. The majority of the cabinet members and — very important — of justices of the Supreme Court were slaveholders. The slaveholding Chief Justice Roger Taney, appointed by slaveholding President Andrew Jackson to succeed the slaveholding John Marshall, would serve all the way through the decades before the war into the years of the Civil War itself; it would be a radical change of the kind slaveholders feared when in 1863, President Lincoln would appoint the anti-slavery politician Salmon P. Chase of Ohio to succeed Taney.

The size of the House

Demographics of the House and Senate

Congressional powers

The Constitution, The Federalist, and a Little Hip-Hop

Ron Chernow's biography undercuts the notion that Alexander Hamilton was a well-born defender of privilege. Here is a passage summing up what the born-out-of-wedlock Hamilton and his brother faced in their youth:

Let us pause briefly to tally the grim catalog of disasters that had befallen these two boys between 1765 and 1769: their father had vanished, their mother had died, their cousin and supposed protector had committed bloody suicide, and their aunt, uncle, and grandmother had all died. James, 16, and Alexander, 14, were now left alone, largely friendless and penniless. At every step in their rootless, topsy-turvy existence, they had been surrounded by failed, broken, embittered people. Their short lives had been shadowed by a stupefying sequence of bankruptcies, marital separations, deaths, scandals, and disinheritance. Such repeated shocks must have stripped Alexander Hamilton of any sense that life was fair, that he existed in a benign universe, or that he could ever count on help from anyone. That this abominable childhood produced such a strong, productive, self-reliant human being -- that this fatherless adolescent could have ended up a founding father of a country he had not yet even seen -- seems little short of miraculous.

The story set to music:



Concerns of war, peace, and security

• Federalist 8
• Federalist 9

Controlling power

• Federalist 10
• Federalist 51
• Federalist 47
• Federalist 48
• Federalist 49

Federalist v. Anti-Federalist

Tearing Down the Framers' Democratic Fence: Obama, ISIL, and the Constitution

Robert Naiman, a Policy Director for Just Foreign Policy, wrote an article for the Huffington Post on Obama's speech a few weeks ago regarding U.S. military strikes in Iraq to dismantle ISIL. Naiman believes that Obama did a poor job in his speech at explaining how his decision to authorize airstrikes in Iraq without Congressional approval is Constitutional and legal. Alluding to the bombings of Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2013, Naiman argues that decisions are detrimental to what he calls the "democratic fence the Framers wisely constructed to try to impede the president" because it sets a precedent of expanded war powers for future presidents. He then goes on to urge the administration to explain why it waited until Congressional recess and an Israel cease fire to authorize the airstrikes.

Questions to ponder: What would Publius and Tocqueville have said about Obama's authorization of airstrikes if they lived today? Is Obama acting within his constitutional limits as Commander in Chief? What should Obama have said in his speech to justify his airstrikes using the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973?

My thoughts: I would agree with this premise IF we were talking about war. The problem with Naiman's article is that he wrongly associates airstrikes in Iraq with going to war with them. Although these airstrikes may lead to a slippery slope and could potentially result in a war, Obama is not going to war with anyone. Time and time again, presidents have taken limited actions like this without Congress (e.g. Bush II). Obama is not alone on this one.

Here is the link to the Huffington Post article. Any other thoughts?

KC

P.S. I'm a big fan of John Oliver, so I looked up an article on his response to Obama's speech. Here it is.

Obama's UN Speech

I read the transcript for the President's recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly, and found some of his statements to hold true to the patterns we've been examining in class, from the expression of a universal faith to the rededication of America to the securing of natural rights.

The following is from the conclusion of his speech:

"This is what America is prepared to do – taking action against immediate threats, while pursuing a world in which the need for such action is diminished. The United States will never shy away from defending our interests, but nor will we shrink from the promise of this institution and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights – the notion that peace is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of a better life... But we welcome the scrutiny of the world – because what you see in America is a country that has steadily worked to address our problems and make our union more perfect. America is not the same as it was 100 years ago, 50 years ago, or even a decade ago. Because we fight for our ideals, and are willing to criticize ourselves when we fall short. Because we hold our leaders accountable, and insist on a free press and independent judiciary.  Because we address our differences in the open space of democracy – with respect for the rule of law; with a place for people of every race and religion; and with an unyielding belief in the ability of individual men and women to change their communities and countries for the better.

After nearly six years as President, I believe that this promise can help light the world. Because I’ve seen a longing for positive change – for peace and freedom and opportunity – in the eyes of young people I’ve met around the globe. They remind me that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what God you pray to, or who you love, there is something fundamental that we all share. Eleanor Roosevelt, a champion of the UN and America’s role in it, once asked, “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places,” she said, “close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works.”

The people of the world look to us, here, to be as decent, as dignified, and as courageous as they are in their daily lives. And at this crossroads, I can promise you that the United States of America will not be distracted or deterred from what must be done. We are heirs to a proud legacy of freedom, and we are prepared to do what is necessary to secure that legacy for generations to come. Join us in this common mission, for today’s children and tomorrow’s."

Would you deem these remarks to be a successful allusion to the views of the Founding Fathers? How well are these views received by the international audience the President was speaking to? What are the other ways his statements use the same tactics as the speeches we've already examined in this class?

To me, this speech, and Obama's presence at the General Assembly, represents a core piece of the Presidency that sometimes gets lost on the public: the role of the President as the key representative of the United States on the international stage. Is there a part of the Presidential job description that could be deemed "most important," or has the role of the Executive become too blurred to reestablish the original intent the Constitutional drafters had for this branch of the government?

The entire transcript can be found here:
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/barack-obama-un-general-assembly-transcript-111288_Page2.html

Judge Ginsburg on Women's Rights

It was interesting to see how Ginsburg responded to the exact thing we were talking about in class on Wednesday. Although we did discuss the pro's and con's of Ginsburg staying in the Supreme Court as justice, it looks as if she's here to stay. During this interview, she explains what advantages there are to having three woman justices, and explains briefly on how she wants to enforce woman's rights in the future. HERE is the link I found via Real Clear Politics.

Rebecca

The Constitution: A First Cut

Tocqueville's concern about majority tyranny

Padmé Amidala explains Federalist 1.

What were the concerns of the Antifederalists?

Some myths about the Constitution

If you like Amar's book, you can watch him talk about it on video here.

• The Articles of Confederation.
• The map
• The Constitution.

The Great Compromise:

• Virginia Plan
• New Jersey Plan
• Connecticut Compromise

Read these provisions from an actual constitution. How would you appraise them?

ARTICLE 118. Citizens have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality. ...

ARTICLE 119. Citizens have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people.

ARTICLE 120. Citizens have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.

ARTICLE 121. Citizens have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native language...

ARTICLE 122. Women are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life. The possibility of exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting them an equal right with men to work, payment for work, rest and leisure, social insurance and education, and by state protection of the interests of mother and child, prematernity and maternity leave with full pay, and the provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens.

ARTICLE 123. Equality of rights of citizens irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church is separated from the state, and the school from the church. ...

ARTICLE 128. The inviolability of the homes of citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by law.

Contrast the US Constitution with the Confederate Constitution.

Can't get enough?  A wonderful lecture by Yale history professor Joanne Freeman (Pomona `84):

Green Activists Take NY

I'm a sucker for a good protest, so I thought I would share this story. Green groups took a stand today in New York City with an overwhelming show of support for green initiatives. Both Tom Steyer and Sierra Club Executive Directer Michael Brune were in attendance. I applaud their amazing turnout and accessibility to the public. Here is the story on Politico.

Janine

Page Limits, Amendments

In case your are looking for loopholes in the page limits, read this article. (h/t Jessica Floyd)

For those of you writing on proposed constitutional amendments, the Pew Research Center has a short item that may be of use (click the link for text of full article)

Civil Religion and the Majority

Civil Religion

• Winthrop's "City on a Hill"
• The Liberty Bell: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof" (Leviticus 25:10)
• The national motto, "In God We Trust"
• The Dollar Bill:  pyramid and eagle
• The Pledge of Allegiance (see old method of salute)
• Early Thanksgiving Proclamations

Lincoln Second Inaugural

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the causeof the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

The Majority:  "I know no country, in which, speaking generally, there is less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America (Tocqueville, 254-255).

Religion. Service, and Public Spirit

• American democracy: "Under its sway it is not especially the things accomplished by the public administration that are great, but rather those things done without its help and beyond its sphere" (p. 244)
• "Self-interest properly understood" (Tocqueville 525-530).  We shall return to this point when we discuss political parties.
• Where people volunteer
• Where people give 

Texas Textbook Debacle

Hello everyone,

I thought the issue about textbooks in Texas was an interesting debate happening in the news this week that also relates to the creationism vs. evolutionism debate as well as to very basic principles like freedom.. In short the new textbooks proposed for Texas public schools contain a right-wing agenda which blurs the line between church and state, down plays the roles of African Americans and Native Americans, incorrectly portrays the issue of global warming... etc. Here is Washington Post's take on the issues, Politico's and Dallas Morning News's. I'm a little torn on how to feel. I don't think that Texas should use these textbooks, but I certainly understand the arguments about why they should be allowed to- namely I believe parents should be able to teach their children mostly whatever they want. (I might think it's wrong, or a moral hazard, but I think that they have the right to do it) I however think public institutions should be required to teach an objective portrayal of history. Any other opinions?

Reid

Civic Culture

Writing

Who was Tocqueville?

• Short biography
• Reasons for coming to America
• Itinerary
• Map of his travels, along with journal entries
• The fake quotation

Civic Culture

• Individualism
• US v. Europe
• Seeing government as a threat
• Patriotism
• Comparative data
• "Nothing is more annoying inthe ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the American" (p. 237).
• Americans view their industriousness
• Putin on American exceptionalism
• Religion
• "The religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States." (p. 295 of Lawrence-Mayer ed.) 
• Recent data.
• Belief in the Bible
• Creationism and an international comparison
• Wealth, religion, and the US as an outlier: graph
• Wealth, religion, and morality in comparative perspective
• In June 2006, Barack Obama gave an important speech on religion in politics. See prepared text here and video clip here.
• Service
• Tocqueville on American democracy: "Under its sway it is not especially the things accomplished by the public administration that are great, but rather those things done without its help and beyond its sphere" (p. 244)
• Where people volunteer
• Where people give 

Civil Religion

• Winthrop's "City on a Hill"
• The Liberty Bell: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof" (Leviticus 25:10)
• The national motto, "In God We Trust"
• The Dollar Bill:  pyramid and eagle
• The Pledge of Allegiance (see old method of salute)
• Early Thanksgiving Proclamations

First Writing Assignment, Fall 2014

Pick one of the following:

1. Find a recent (since June 2014) article pointing to a problem that Publius anticipated. (You may search newspapers at news.google.com.) Explain how The Federalist sheds light on the story. In this instance, is the political system working as the Founders hoped?

2. Identify a significant claim by Tocqueville that was either incorrect from the start or no longer applies to the United States.

3. Here are some current proposed amendments to the United States Constitution. Pick one, weigh the arguments for and against, and explain your position.

• H.J. Res. 113 (remove ERA ratification deadline)
• H.J. Res. 114 (four-year House terms)
• H.J. Res. 121 (campaign finance)
• H.J. Res. 115 (state repeal of federal laws and rules)
• H.J. Res 122 (single-subject requirement)
• S.J. Res. 23 (equal application of laws
• S. J. Res. 37 (parental rights)

Instructions:

• Whichever essay you choose, do research to document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head.  
• Essays should be typed, double-spaced, and no more than three pages long. I will not read past the third page. 
• Cite your sources with endnotes, which should be in a standard style (e.g., Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style). Endnote pages do not count against the page limit. 
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. 
• Turn in essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, Wednesday, September 24. Late essays will drop a gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that. I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency.

The Declaration, Equality, and Lincoln

The Declaration (hyperlink versions)

Deleted Paragraph:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidels powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. He has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

From The Ethics: (look ahead to Murray 253-254).

Since happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with perfect virtue, we must consider the nature of virtue; for perhaps we shall thus see better the nature of happiness. The true student of politics, too, is thought to have studied virtue above all things; for he wishes to make his fellow citizens good and obedient to the laws. 

Text of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Lincoln-Douglas Galesburg debate video -- Can you tell where the re-enactor screwed up?

From the Cornerstone Speech by Alexander Stephens:

The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation soconceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow-- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Natural Law, Self-Evident Truth, and the Declaration

THE CMC WASHINGTON PROGRAM

(Internship list)

The Declaration of Independence and Moscow on the Hudson:



The Declaration

Dr. King on natural law:

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.

Self-evident truth and Federalist 31.

The real Abraham Lincoln on Euclid and the Declaration:

One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

The movie version:

"I Have a Dream"

The program for the March on Washington




Hypertext of the speech