1. Our Purpose & Approach
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“As I have traveled across the country, I have been astounded just how many of our fellow citizens feel strongly about their constitutional rights but have no idea what they are, or for that matter, what the Constitution says. I am not suggesting that they become Constitutional scholars — whatever that means. I am suggesting, however, that if one feels strongly about his or her rights, it does make sense to know generally what the Constitution says about them. It is at least as easy to understand as a cell phone contract — and vastly more important.”i
– Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
There is something happening in America!
More than ever in my lifetime, people are hungry for knowledge and truth. They are searching out the formula of our freedom, seeking the principles that somehow made America the most successful nation in the history of the world. They are digging deep and they refuse to accept
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CONSTITUTION ALIVE! Class Workbook
shallow answers while they demand that we return to our roots.
As we journey back to Independence Hall, we may not find the fictional Benjamin Franklin glasses to decode a secret message on the back of the Declaration of Independence (from the movie National Treasures); but we will most certainly re-discover on the front side of our founding documents the secret sauce of American Exceptionalism.
The founding principles, our freedom formula, is in plain language and their restoration simply requires us to read them and then stand up for them.
Let’s get started!
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SECTION ONE: Our Purpose & Approach
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CONSTITUTION ALIVE! Class Workbook
SECTION ONE: Our Purpose & Approach
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CONSTITUTION ALIVE! Class Workbook
Recommended resources for further study:
- Hillsdale College’s Constitution program
- National Center for Constitutional Studies’ program
- The 5,000-Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen
- The Heritage Guide to the Constitution by Edwin Meese,
- Dr. Matthew Spalding, and Dr. David Forte
- Constitutional Literacy with Mike Farris
SECTION ONE: Our Purpose & Approach
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“On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”iv
– Thomas Jefferson
“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable [constitution], more than for a faithful, exercise of its powers. (cont. next page)
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CONSTITUTION ALIVE! Class Workbook
“What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense.”
– James Madison
“The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it.”
– James Wilson
“The first and fundamental rule in the interpretation of all documents is to construe them according to the sense of the terms and the intentions of the parties.”v
– Joseph Story
SECTION ONE: Our Purpose & Approach
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In the latter half of your workbook you will findThe Constitution Made Easy by Michael Holler. This has the original text on the left and the plain-language amended version on the right.
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