Lecture 3 from Hillsdale College Online Course titled, Constitution 101 was viewed and discussed.
Mr. Pestritto talked about the founder’s agreement on the government’s purpose was to secure citizens’ natural rights. Yet, after ten years of operating under the Articles of Confederation, the founders had grown concerned that state governments had failed to secure citizens’ natural rights. Quotes that stood out were,
“…. laws were not only too numerous to understand but also impractical and unjust.”
– Madison, Vices of the Political System of the United States
“One hundred seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one….
…the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”
– Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIII, 1784
“…one of their errors was ‘having too good an opinion of human nature.’”
– George Washington to John Jay, August 15, 1786
“If these states should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial confederacies, a man must be far gone in Utopian speculations, who can seriously doubt that the subdivisions into which they might be thrown, would have frequent and violent contests with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests, as an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.”
– Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 6
October 24, 2023, 4:00 PM at the Berger Center, we will view Lecture 4, “Consent of the Governed and the Separation of Powers.”
To learn more about the US Constitution, receive a study guide for a gathering, and RSVP for an upcoming gathering, email TheNewOakmontCC@gmail.com.
We look forward to seeing you!