Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Catechism on the Constitution

I wanted to share this cool little thing I found this week. Way back a long time ago they used to teach the Constitution to small children.  Not just teach it, but teach it well and kind of drill it.  This is a book published in 1828, written by Arthur Stansbury.  It's a question and answer guide to the Constitution.  Of course not all the material is still completely relevant because of Amendments and stuff, but it's a good course for children and adults to get introduced to the content of the Constitution.  I thought it was pretty cool.  It's called Elementary Catechism on the Constitution of the United States: For the use of schools.  Do you remember learning the Constitution in this much depth?  I don't.  I recommend reading it.  I like it.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Constitutional Convention Part 2

Correction:  Last week I wrote that the Articles of Confederation were drafted after the Revolutionary War ended in 1783.  They were actually drafted in 1776 after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Sorry.  My bad. I hope I haven't lost all credibility. :)

Now for Part Two:  Last week we left off at the Great Compromise.  The Great Compromise attempted to blend the Virgina Plan (representation according to population) with the New Jersey Plan (equal representation) by establishing The House of Representatives and the Senate. The quarelling persisted and they argued about how many representatives each state should have and whether slaves should be counted when determining population.  It was a total mess and it seemed as if the whole Constitution project was going to fall apart.  Finally some delegates had a change of heart (likely due to prayers) and the Great Compromise was adopted on July 16, 1787.  Yay!  So finally it was official that the House would have representatives according to population, and the Senate would have an equal number of votes.  They also determined that they would count three fifths of slaves when counting people. A lot of delegates really really really disliked (my word for "hate") slavery, especially Gouverneur Morris from Pennsylvania. (Gouverneur was actually his first name.  He was not the Governor of Pennsylvania.  He also had a peg leg.)  

Just 10 days later on July 26 they were ready to put together a committee called the Committee of Detail which, you guessed it, worked out the details of the Constitution, with John Rutledge of South Carolina in charge. Some of the other guys, such as George Washington, took off on a break and did things such as fishing while the committee was at work. Some of the details that they worked out were naming things such as:
  • the "House of Representatives" and its leader the "Speaker"
  • the "Supreme Court"
  • the "President" as the head of the executive branch

On August 6th the Convention gathered together again and the committee said, "How does this look?"  They had a few more details to discuss such as how the president was to be elected and how the Constitution was going to be ratified.  These discussions concluded with an agreement on a system of electors to elect the president.  This meant that the people would indirectly choose the president.  They also decided that the people would be in charge of ratifying the Constitution.  Every state would have specially elected conventions to vote yay or nay on the Constitution. Nine of the thirteen states were needed to ratify the Constitution and make it the supreme law of the land.

Now that the last of the details were worked out, the document was passed onto the Committee of Style and Arrangement.  These were the guys in charge of the final draft.  Talk about stress, to know your handwriting was going to be on display for years to come!  I bet they wished they had spell check too. This committee did its thing and presented the final draft on September 17, 1787.  Ben Franklin did not agree with everything in the Constitution, but he signed it anyway because he was humble enough to admit that he was not always right.  Although he disagreed with some things, he at least knew the Constitution was very good.  Others had doubts too, but mostly because the Constitution didn't set forth rights of the individual.  This was later fixed with the addition of the Bill of Rights.

So the signatures began. Thirty-nine delegates signed the Constitution, with George Washington first. By July 4, 1788 ten states had signed the Constitution.  Here is a chronological list of when each of the 13 states ratified the Constitution.  As you can see, three states were unanimous, some had a large majority, and some were very close in votes:


DateStateVotes
YesNo
1December 7, 1787Delaware300
2December 11, 1787Pennsylvania4623
3December 18, 1787New Jersey380
4January 2, 1788Georgia260
5January 9, 1788Connecticut12840
6February 6, 1788Massachusetts187168
7April 26, 1788Maryland6311
8May 23, 1788South Carolina14973
9June 21, 1788New Hampshire5747
10June 25, 1788Virginia8979
July 4, 1788BIG HUGE PARTY!
11July 26, 1788New York3027
12November 21, 1789North Carolina19477
13May 29, 1790Rhode Island3432
They had a big huge Fourth of July party with a big huge parade.  James Wilson, a signer from Pennsylvania, gave a speech and said, "Happy Country!" He said a lot more other important stuff, but that is material for another post....

That ends today's lesson.  I hope ya'll have a Happy Thanksgiving!  What a wonderful country we have to be grateful for.  I am grateful for our Founding Fathers and their willingness to spend a long hot summer drafting a document that produces an effective government to protect our God-given liberties.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Constitutional Convention Part 1

Ok, so I was going to post about the Founding Fathers today, but I'm not finished with my research because there were 39 of them who signed the constitution and I wanted to read about each one.  It takes a long time.

I bought this book (see below) titled, We the People, at a discount book fair about 3 weeks ago.  It's written by Lynne Cheney.  It's a good book for kids ages 8+.  It talks mostly about the Constitutional Convention.  It does not cover the actual content of the constitution, but it's a good start.  You can buy it or check it out from your local library.  I find that I learn a whole lot from reading children's nonfiction books.  Don't overlook their value.  You can usually finish a children's book in about 20 minutes or less and not have to look up fancy words in the dictionary to understand what the author is talking about. I don't know why I don't remember learning half this stuff when I was a kid. Either it wasn't taught well, or I have horrible retention.



I only got through about half of the book while reading it aloud to my children today in 25 minutes. I think the language in the book is still a little too sophisticated for young children, so I had to stop and talk about it in their language. This is what we learned today in my own words:

Way back on October 16, 1781 America won the last battle of the Revolutionary War in Yorktown, Virginia. Yay! So now America was independent from Britain. (This was when my eight year old son told me the war actually ended in 1783. I looked it up, and the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, so I'm not quite sure which date is the official ending to the war. According to Mrs. Cheney it was when the last battle was won.)

So anyways, the British were totally bummed because they totally thought they were going to win, but now there were a bunch of Americans that were really excited (we'll call them "Patriots") that have this big huge country all to themselves (except, of course, for the Native Americans) with so much potential for prosperity and greatness. However there was no, like, official government or anything to keep things in order. Some people wanted to appoint George Washington as king because he was so awesome, but he was like, "Wait a minute. No way. Don't you understand that we just spent six years fighting for independence because kings are not a good idea?" So instead they continued operating under what was call the Articles of Confederation, which was America's a first attempt at a form of government after the signing of the Declaration of Indpendence.

The Articles of Confederation ended up proving to be a total bust for a few reasons. One was because the states were printing their own money which was a total mess because it was difficult for states to buy and sell goods from each other and all that. Secondly, the government couldn't get the citizens of the states to help defend America. Thirdly, the government couldn't do anything about getting the states to contribute to paying off all the debt that it owed from fighting the war. Basically the Congress didn't have enough power and it flopped.  Other countries saw that the newly formed union was weak and took advantage of it.  Britain didn't leave like they were supposed to. They were pretty much like, "Nanny nanny nanny, you can't get us." It needed to be fixed quick or America would have egg on its face. George Washington said:
"I am mortified beyond expression when I view the clouds which have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned upon any country."  :( 
He didn't actually use a sad face, but my point is that it was a sad time for America.

So in May of 1787 some American guys (we'll call them delegates) got together and said, "Let's fix this."  At first they were just going to fix the Articles of Confederation, but it ended up they scrapped the whole Articles of Confederation thing and started fresh. It was a big deal. Many, if not all, of the men were very well read and learned on the subject of government. They were smart, they cared about the country, and they wanted it to succeed. So they committed to spend how ever long it took to get a really solid government in place. It ended up that they spent the entire summer from May 25 to September 17 working out the kinks of this new Constitution.  It wasn't easy. There were lots of arguments, it was hot (and I imagine stinky) in that unairconditioned room in Philadelphia.

James Madison was a key writer of the Constitution. He knew that the key to a solid government was if it rested on the People. All but, one of the 13 states was in attendance at the convention. Rhode Island was the party pooper and chose not to attend.

During the convention, the delegates threw out their ideas and suggestions. One guy from Virginia, Edmund Randolph, suggested the Virginia Plan which suggested that bigger states had more representatives than smaller states. But the smaller states were like, "No way, Jose!" So a guy from Delaware, William Paterson, presented a plan called the New Jersey Plan that suggested an equal number of representatives in each state. Basically it was like having a 5 year old and a 6 year old arguing over who is more deserving of the last piece of Double Bubble in the Halloween candy bowl.  Nobody wanted to budge on their opinion.

But finally a guy from Connecticut, Roger Sherman, suggested a plan that there would be two bodies of Congress.  The House would be represented according to the size of the state.  The Senate would have equal representation from each state.  Brilliant!  Now is everybody happy?  Of course they weren't, because the big states thought they were all more cool and important and stuff, so Ben Franklin had to step in and say, "Hold it!  Let's not forget to bring God back into this equation.  Perhaps he can shed some light on our predicament."  (Not an exact quote.) So they stopped arguing long enough to form a committee that came up with the Great Compromise, which was pretty much what Sherman proposed, but it made it more appealing to large states by having the House deal with legislation dealing with money first.

That is as far as we got today.  Join in for Part 2 next week.....

Thanks to all who are joining in! Learning the constitution is very important to keeping our country strong. I'm still reading The 5000 Year Leap that I mentioned last week. It's a great book, and I officially recommend it.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Constitution 101 - Lesson 1

Where to begin?  There is so much to learn!

I'm currently reading the book titled The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen.


I'm only on page 55, but so far it's been an informative read.  Here is some stuff that I learned:

First let's talk about the spectrum of government.  Imagine a line.  At the left side of the line there is big controlling government and at the right side of the line there is complete control by the people.  Let's call these Monarchy and Anarchy.  Neither one of these extremes is desirable, and our Founding Father's had a desire for the United States government to be as dead center as possible where people ruled with a small central government.  In the middle there is balance and order.

Monarchy--------------Balance--------------Anarchy

In order to explain this to my kids I gave the example of our family.  If the dynamics in our family were entirely to the left side it would mean that Mommy and Daddy would be barking out commands such as "Clean your room! Do your homework!  Cook us dinner!" while Mommy and Daddy are not doing much but sitting and watching TV and eating bon bons.  They thought that was very uncool.  On the other hand, if the dynamics were entirely to the right, all family members would do only things that they wanted to do which would mean we would likely never clean, we would eat out every night, and we wouldn't educate ourselves because it's so much easier to watch cartoons all day while jumping on the couch and eating junk food.  They liked the idea of watching TV and eating candy, but even my nine year old recognized that an absence of order would cause us to "get sick and hurt."

So where is the balance?  In the middle.  But what does that mean?  That means that all family members chip in and have the opportunity to voice their opinion for the common good of the family.  Both children and parents clean, parents help children with homework, and mom cooks nutritious meals that the kids help pick, while the rest of the family sets the table.  Of course this is an extremely simplified example, but my point is that too much government is oppressive and annoying and no government is chaotic and unhealthy.

Finding and agreeing on a happy middle can be a tricky thing when people have opinions.  That is why we common folk need to educate ourselves on the Constitution and find out for ourselves why the United States of America's system of government works when practiced properly. We would be wise to learn how our Founding Fathers managed to be successful at drafting this document despite their differences.  We can take that knowledge and apply those same principles to our current 21st century US citizenship.  Our Founding Fathers were men of varying opinions, beliefs, and faiths, and many of them claimed that the document was divinely inspired and their ability to complete it a miracle. I leave you with a quote:
"I beg I may not be understood to infer, that our general convention was divinely inspired when it formed the new federal constitution, merely because that constitution has been unreasonably and vehemently opposed; I have so much faith in the general government of the world by Providence that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance [as the framing of the Constitution] ... should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler in whom all inferior spirits live and move and have their being." - Benjamin Franklin, 1787.
How can you not love Ben?  There's a bunch more good quotes in the beginning of The 5000 Year Leap from our Founding Fathers.  Join in next week.....

Introduction

I'm not sure what exactly inspired me to study the Constitution.  I think I just realized one day that I was completely ignorant on the subject with only a basic understanding from what I learned in public school social studies classes, a course on political science in college, and a couple of School House Rocks clips.  I never was very interested in political science and figured I would leave it up to the experts to run our country.  I never felt that my one lonely opinion made much of a difference in a vastly populated country.  However, now I realize that it does.  I'm not satisfied with the current conditions of our country and I'm not so sure those in leadership positions are the so called "experts" I believed they were.

As an American I want to take a moment of my time each week and share what I learn about the Constitution and the foundation of our country.  Collectively those of us who care can make a huge difference.  My goal is to educate myself, my children, and  anyone interested in following this blog on what makes The United States of America the great country that it is and was meant to be.  I want to learn about the kind of people our Founding Fathers were and why they spent four arduous months drafting this document that has survived over 200 years.  I want to know what I need to do to protect it and keep this country strong.  I want to be able to watch the news and better understand what they are talking about and be able to intelligently form my own opinion.  I want to feel smart.

Surely my opinion and my faith will be interjected among the facts that I present.  But my goal is to present a factual and accurate description, picture, story (whatever you want to call it) of the Constitution.  I don't claim to have perfect grammar, sophisticated vocabulary, or eloquence of speech.  I pretty much just write what is in my head.  I hope to post a lot of quotes from our Founding Fathers.

So here it goes.  I am now your new Professor (is it blasphemous to call myself a professor when I'm not really one?) for Constitution 101.  The syllabus is a work in progress.  I plan to teach as I learn.  You can reap the benefits of my summarizations and paraphrasing of the text and books that I read.  Hopefully you will read along with me too and make thoughtful and respectful comments that we can all ponder.

I'll end this post with a quote from Thomas Jefferson.  He strongly promoted education, especially that of the common people.
"Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to ; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty." - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 20, 1787 (about 3 months after the signing of the Constitution.)
So let us educate ourselves and use our common sense to keep us free.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Election Day

Today I took my students with me to vote - very important part of the constitution and a wonderful opportunity for Americans to voice their opinions.