Civics Education and the Constitutional Order
Legend has it that a crowd had gathered outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia as the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention were concluding in 1787. As Benjamin Franklin exited the Hall, a woman called out, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” To which Franklin replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
A constitution is a piece of paper, but it is also an ideal based on a vision of what a representative government and a free, ordered society can and should be. But those guarantees are only as good as the willingness of the people who defend them. As the experience of many nations around the world shows, constitutions are easily dissolved, and constitutional order lost, when citizens allow their leaders to violate their charter to achieve partisan goals. When that happens, the delicate system of checks and balances usually gives way to an oppressive one-party rule.
As we have seen in several of our Latin American neighbors, the judiciary no longer serves as a check on presidential or legislative overreach; they legitimize it and become partisan accomplices. Presidents and their party-bosses in the legislature no longer seek legislative compromise; they steamroll their opponents and vilify them as “enemies of democracy” as they continue to manipulate people and elections in their own favor. There are “elections” (of a sort) in Venezuela and Russia, but we all know it is impossible to vote the ruling regime out of power as its control over the engines of power in the bureaucratic state becomes more dominant over time. The threat to the constitutional order is even greater when the media no longer serve as another check on governmental overreach and corruption, particularly when they become instruments of a partisan takeover of governmental power. We also need to worry about a governmental system that has become an administrative state in which control is largely in the hands of unelected bureaucrats.
What is needed, I suggest, is a movement of citizens who elect representatives and leaders who respect and defend our constitutional order rather than those who would jettison it for their own partisan purposes. It is disturbing that, according to surveys, the approval rate for the Congress is at an all-time low, hovering at around 16 percent. And yet in many elections, 98 percent of incumbents get re-elected, suggesting that voters are very unhappy — but mostly with other people’s choices, not their own. They like it when their own politicians fight the good partisan fight and “bring home the bacon” for them but find it disreputable when other politicians do the same for their constituents. Thus, when it comes to question of the source of the divisions within American society and politics, perhaps the best answer would be that voters should just look in the mirror. We have met the enemy, and he is us.
Worse yet, these divisions have become so entrenched that they have often served to paralyze the legislative branch of the federal government, the branch that the Framers of the Constitution designed to take precedence in most matters, especially those concerning the public purse and the framing of laws. Frustration with this paralysis has led some factions to want to bypass the Constitutional system of checks-and-balances to achieve their own partisan purposes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that what might help them achieve goals they favor now could be used by their opponents at some future date achieve goals they abhor. A series of dueling tyrannies is not what the Framers had in mind when they designed our republican form of government.
And so we should hope that an overriding number of voters will elect candidates who respect judicial independence, value legislative order and compromise, and push for constitutional limits on federal power. Those who override the order of that constitutional republic to do some “good” they think is more important than the nation’s constitutional order should be wary of the chaos they are likely to unleash on the nation they say they love. The framers of the Constitution understood that we should not only be wary of “evildoers,” but also of those who yearn for more power to do even more “good.” Often, the greatest evil is done by those who have convinced themselves that they are so good that all obstacles, even constitutional ones, must be swept aside to achieve their goals.
But who cares about the Constitution anymore? Many Americans still do. And all Americans should. Not the Constitution created out of various interpretations of the Bill of Rights, but the Constitution itself and the form of the Constitutional order it was written to create and protect.
Let there be no mistake: Greater respect for the Constitutional order and a willingness to sacrifice our “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” in its preservation are the only things standing between us and tyranny. It might be the tyranny of chaos, the tyranny of a political party, or the tyranny of a political ideology, but tyranny is afoot in the land and tyranny there will be, unless we renew our dedication to the republican form of government bequeathed to us.
What I simply cannot understand, therefore, is why every school, college, and university in the nation is not requiring courses on the Constitution and The Federalist Papers. An honest reading of the letters of the Anti-Federalists would be a nice addition as well. How does anyone graduate from high school or college without having a required level of understanding of the text of the Constitution? I am not talking about some modern understanding of how the Bill of Rights should be applied — we can leave arguments about “incorporation” of rights through the Fourteenth Amendment and all discussions of the “penumbras” and “emanations” to a later date — but a solid, foundational course on the basic structure and form of the Constitution.
Could you build respect for Shakespeare without reading his play? So too, who would be so foolish as to imagine that young Americans (and our guest students from other countries) could learn to love and appreciate the Constitution if they have little or no understanding of it?
Comedian Jay Leno used to do a comedy bit on “The Tonight Show” asking young adults questions about some basic facts of American history and government. How many branches of government? Who is the Secretary of State? How many Senators from each state? Everyone would laugh uproariously as person after person failed to answer even the simplest questions. This isn’t funny anymore. It’s tragic. And the tragedy is playing out across the nation every day.
Individually, Americans remain ingenious, creative, and generous, even heroic. And yet, our political establishment and government institutions are increasingly dysfunctional. Fewer and fewer people seem content to abide by the Constitutional restrictions on their governmental powers and activities. They cloak themselves in the Constitution, and then act according to their own whims and will-to-power, suffering under the presumption that if, with a little power and control, I can do this much good (or good “as my group sees it”), then how much more good would I be able to do if I gained even more power and control over even more things?
Respect for the particular genius of a republican form of government, organized according to the principle of the separation of powers and a system of checks-and-balances, is giving way each year to rule by the mob (often mistaken for “democracy”), control by “expert” bureaucratic agencies, or government by judicial fiat rather than legislative compromise. We increasingly find ourselves subject to those we did not elect, polls we did not participate in, and a social media no one respects except those who have successfully monetized or manipulated it.
Too often foundations support particular political causes rather than supporting the even greater need for a citizenry schooled in the Constitution. But you get what you pay for. And right now, people are paying large amounts for greater and more expansive forms of tyranny. So far this election cycle, over five and a half billion dollars have been spent on the congressional and presidential races. How much has been spent on schooling students in the Constitution?
And yet, let me suggest that merely reading the Constitution and The Federalist Papers, however good and however necessary, is still not enough. Only a mixture of both reading and experience would provide the training that students need to become wise civic leaders. Students should also go to the meetings of the local city council and hear the county commissioners and the local school board. They should learn to stay quiet, listen, and observe, because they just don’t know enough yet. Whether they’re from out of town or born locally, students generally lack enough experience of a city’s management or investment in its future to have earned the privilege of expressing an opinion.
Students should then return to class and discuss the pros and cons of what they’ve seen — not from a position of superiority but with the goal of understanding what they’ve learned from the citizens who cared enough to show up at the meeting or get themselves elected to a local office with little prestige and who are now besieged with endless complaints and biased coverage from media outlets. Most of all, students need to understand that while books may have an admirable clarity, democratic governance in practice is a messy business. It requires patience and the skill of dealing with others whose needs and perspectives differ from one’s own.
Students should also study the crime statistics of their town. They should learn about the economics of the town. They might each choose some product made or sold in town and trace the supply chain from its origins to the store. This would help them understand that products don’t just appear magically on the shelves. Farmers must grow the food; others transport and store it; still others distribute it to producers who process and package it. Where do our computers, iPhones, automobiles, refrigerators, and natural gas come from? How do they reach our homes or dorms? What would involvement in the local economy entail? What does it depend on?
The national news media have convinced us that government and economics are federal topics. But citizenship and government are not just about power brokering in New York and Washington, D.C. Students need to know that the many things they care about are (or should be) handled locally. For that to happen, they must be ready to engage in their local institutions in good faith. We need to teach our young people the skills and self-discipline required for republican self-government and imbue them with the faith and love they need to preserve it, lest we lose the privilege and freedom of controlling our own affairs — the gift bequeathed to us at great cost by our forebears. Ours is a republic for now, but only if we can keep it.
Dr. Randall Smith is a tenured professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas Houston.
Related Essays
