The Constitution I

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.

A report from Jake Zimmerman

Jake Zimmerman, CMC `96, is a member of the Missouri House. He just sent out a legislative update that does not sound like political boilerplate. It sounds like ... Jake. Enjoy:

Dear friends and supporters,

I just returned from an annual ritual, the special legislative session to reconsider bills vetoed by the Governor. It's my great pleasure to report that we didn't override a single one. Normally this would be a routine affair, but this wasn't a normal year: Governor Nixon, to his great credit, vetoed dozens of bills. As you can imagine, there was a fair amount of grumbling by members (from both parties) whose prized children didn't make it past his desk. But in the end, while a few legislators took to the floor to make their grumbling public, nothing more came of it than that - a useful reminder to a few of my colleagues that there's a new sheriff in town.

This is all noteworthy because it would have been much easier, politically, for the Governor to just sign several of these bills and avoid the headache. But he didn't take the easy road. Instead, he did the right thing. If a bill created conflict, if it dove into Constitutional gray areas, or if it was just plain dumb, he vetoed it: period. The Governor and his staff deserve praise for these small acts of political courage, especially because the media has paid little attention.

Oh, and this should tell you something about the seriousness of the legislature: the House leadership only made one formal attempt at an override: on a bill to require that every legislator receive a key to the private area in the State Capitol rotunda. (Insert your own snide comment here.)

Anyway, especially after all the unpleasant news in local politics over the past month, it was a pleasure to be back in Jefferson City thinking substantive thoughts for a little while, and it's a pleasure to share the news with you. As always, please be in touch if I can be helpful in any way... or just to say hi.

All the best,
---Jake Zimmerman
State Representative
Missouri
House District 83

Alinsky Lives

From The Politico:

And the 1971 agitator’s handbook “Rules for Radicals” — written by Saul Alinsky, the Chicago community organizer who was the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis, and whose teachings helped shape Barack Obama’s work on Chicago’s South Side — has been among Amazon’s top 100 sellers for the past month, put there in part by people who “also bought” books by Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck,and South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint.

Yes, the same folks who brought you Obama the socialist have been appropriating the words and ways of leftists past — and generally letting their freak flags fly.

Click here to continue reading.

American Civic Culture II

• Comparative data on religion.
  
• Comparative data on evolution.
• A closer look at US attitudes on evolution.
• Faith-based community service.
• Philanthropy in the United States
• New data on individualism in the United States

American Civic Culture I

Who was Tocqueville?

• Short biography


• Reasons for coming to America


• Itinerary


• Map of his travels, along with journal entries

He wrote: "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.) See here for relevant data.

In June 2006, Barack Obama gave an important speech on religion in politics. See prepared text here.

Covenant for a New America here.

First Assignment

Pick one of the following:

• Find a recent (since June 2009) article pointing to a problem that Publius or the Anti-Federalists anticipated. (You may search newspapers at news.google.com.) Explain how The Federalist or Anti-Federalist writing sheds light on the story. In this instance, is the political system working as the Founders hoped – or as the Anti-Federalists feared?
• Write a rebuttal to any of the readings that we are covering through next week.
• Read Peter Robinson’s article at http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/16/tea-party-taxes-king-george-opinions-columnists-obama.html. Do you agree or disagree? Explain.
• Do Tocqueville’s observations on majority tyranny apply to the United States in 2009? If not, why not? If so, explain how, with concrete examples.

----------------------------

• Whichever essay you choose, do research to document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head.
• Essays should be typed, stapled, double-spaced, and no more than three pages
  long. I will not read past the third page.
• Put your name on a cover sheet. Do not identify yourself on the text pages.
• 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.
• Return essays by the start of class, Wednesday, September 23. Late essays will drop a
  letter grade. I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency.

.

When in the course of human events...

The Declaration (hyperlink versions)

Lincoln-Douglas Galesburg debate (forward to 1:01:30)

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."

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.

The Declaration shows up in current commentary.