Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Preamble

Today I had my two oldest children memorize the Preamble to the Consitutution.  Let's see if I can remember it, by typing it right now:

We the People of the United States,
In order to form a more Perfect Union,
Establish Justice,
Insure Domestic Tranquility,
Provide for the Common Defence,
Promote the General Welfare and
Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
Do ordain and Establish this Constitution of the United States of America.

I'll admit, I couldn't do it and I cheated, but I'll work on it.

We also talked about the phrase, "In order to form a More Perfect Union." We discussed the definition of "more perfect" meaning that it wasn't perfect, but better than what they had before with the Articles of Confederation. We also discussed what "Union" meant and why the colonies were not united and the reasons they felt they needed something new. They weren't united because they began competing against one another, they lacked a common currency, and they lacked a central government to help regulate certain things.

I'm sorry if we are going kind of slow. I'm sure some of you are ready to get into the meat of it, but you have to bear with me, I'm teaching a 3rd and 4th grader.

If you want some nitty gritty details for today's lesson, you can read about Gouverneur Morris, who was the Founding Father that was primarily responsible for writing the text of the Preamble when he served on the Committee of Stile and Arrangement in the Summer of 1787. Just remember he wasn't actually a Governor. His name just happened to be Gouverneur.:

http://www.history.army.mil/books/revwar/ss/morrisg.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouverneur_Morris

This is what he looked like:
Gouverneur Morris

OH! Also, I forgot about this.  Here is a video of the School House Rock song for the Preamble. It bothers me a little bit that they don't say the first line correctly.  They leave out, "of the United States." But it's good.  It will probably stick in your head for a little while, in a good way.

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