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Every member of the State ought diligently to read and to study the constitution of his country, and teach the rising generation to be free. By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated, and be the better prepared to defend and assert them.

– John Jay - First Chief Justice of the United States

Like many of you, I am a product of the public schools, in my case mostly through the 1970s. It’s a sad state of affairs, but I learned more about our Constitution from School House Rock than I did in all the social studies classes in 12 years of government run schooling. Little did I realize how far we had drifted from the supreme law of the land! I didn’t know because I didn’t care. Like many of you I thought the Constitution was for lawyers and judges.

We sometimes act like reading the Constitution is some grand accomplishment. The U.S. Constitution is only approximately 8,000 words long, including all the amendments, and the Declaration of Independence only adds about 1,500 more. Compared to the King James Bible (approx. 780,000 words), War and Peace (approx. 585,000 words), or the first Harry Potter book (approx. 76,000 words), it’s just not that large. In fact, the average reader should be able to get through the Constitution in about 20 minutes and the Declaration in another 5. I try to read it through 2-3 times a year; it doesn’t take much time and it reminds me how things are supposed to be.

In colonial times people would get together in taverns to discuss news, politics, and whatever was of interest at the time. In colleges and universities now it is common for students to form study groups to help each other. I picture a Constitution Study as a merger of these two concepts. I want to see local and Internet communities get together to discuss the Constitution and the news of the day. Like a group of students, they should be there to read and study the material at hand, i.e., the Constitution. Someone should coordinate the meetings and plan a schedule, but it should be a free and open discussion of the document and how it applies to events of the day. The standard has to be what the Constitution actually says and the original intent of those who wrote and ratified it. The states ratified the Constitution and its amendments based on the words on the page and their common meaning at that time, not what some 21st century judge can twist the words to mean. Remember, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers were all written for, read, and discussed by 18th century farmers.

If we want to change Washington, we have to first take responsibility for the state that it is in and for our lack of knowledge about how it should work.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

IRonald Reagan, 40th President of the United States

So, will you join me? Will you take the first step and begin learning what the Constitution really says and how our government was designed to work? Will you help me return our nation’s liberty town by town? To help you, I am writing a book on the Constitution, blogging about what I am learning and plan to release some of the chapters as essays. I am also working on other resources to help you whether you plan to run a Constitution Study of your own or simply for your own family education. Either way, I hope you join me on this journey to diligently read and study our Constitution. Together we will find out what it means to “plead the fifth”, where you can actually find the much vaunted “Separation of Church and State” (which is NOT in the Constitution), and we’ll discuss the infamous case of yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theater. We’ll look at why we have both a House of Representative and a Senate and why the Constitution gives them the roles they have. We’ll even look into how presidential elections have been manipulated for the last 70 years, why the Electoral College is necessary to the republic (it may not be what you’ve heard in the past), and how the 16th & 17th Amendments helped destroy the republic. Oh, and you’ll also learn why I keep referring to the “republic” rather than our “democracy”.

I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

I hope to find you as another patriot fighting to restore our nation to its proper order. John Adams said he studied politics and war so his children could study mathematics and philosophy. Let us study the Constitution so our children may study mathematics, philosophy, or whatever they want, in a country where men and women are still free!

If you found this interesting and you would like to learn more please read my article Studying the Constitution is not as hard as you may think. If you would like to participate in the conversation, join us at the Constitution Study!

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