If Democrats embrace and deploy the Constitution leading up to the 2024 election, it will enable them to offer a confident message based on the hallowed principles of America’s founding charter.
An Indiana Senate committee hearing on a GOP proposal to ban nearly all abortions in the state, at the Statehouse in Indianapolis, July 26, 2022.
AP Photo/Michael Conroy
Why do government policies sometimes fail to reflect the public will? The answer begins with the design of the US government system, forged in the 18th century.
Ben Franklin, center, inserted an abortion recipe in a popular textbook he republished in 1748.
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A scholar of 18th-century America and the founders analyzes the Supreme Court opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion, which he says relies on an incomplete version of US history.
Protesters used violence and intimidation to prevent federal officials from collecting a whiskey tax during George Washington’s presidency.
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Like today, passions were strong and political discourse was inflamed in late 18th-century America. Angry mobs torched buildings. Virginians drank a toast to George Washington’s speedy death.
Protests against mandates and quarantines get the Founding Fathers’ ideas wrong.
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The Founding Fathers were unrelenting in their commitment to the idea that circumstances can arise that require public officials to take actions abridging individual freedoms.
Alexander Hamilton publicly opposed slavery, but research reveals he was also complicit in it.
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Even Colonial-era abolitionists like Alexander Hamilton enjoyed centuries of generational wealth built from slavery.
A 1975 stamp printed in St. Vincent shows U.S. presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who were all vocally pro-inoculation and vaccination.
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Three approaches were debated during the Constitutional Convention – election by Congress, selection by state legislatures and a popular election, though that was restricted to white landowning men.
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is sworn in Oct. 12 for her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Leah Millis/Pool via AP
Taking oath is an important tradition before assuming charge of a public office. It entails a commitment to the future. What is the history of oath-taking?
Trump has employed the services of constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz.
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Trump’s backers say he is shielded from removal as no criminal offense took place. But this view may be at odds with the original intent of the impeachment clause.
President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One, June 6, 2019.
AP/Alex Brandon
Peter C. Mancall, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
When the founders wrote the Constitution, they had to devise a punishment fitting for a civil servant’s impeachment. One possible punishment: banishment from the community.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 election.
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A little-known provision of the Constitution might allow Trump to be reelected president in 2020 even if he is removed from office through the impeachment process.
The signing of the U.S. Constitution.
Architect of the Capitol
Arguments over Trump’s tariffs and trade wars are just the latest salvo in a heated debate that has raged since the dawn of the American republic.
The Mueller report reveals that Trump and his campaign did all kinds of ethically questionable activities to smear Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, including asking Russia to hack Clinton’s email. According to Attorney General William Barr, nothing Trump did was illegal.
Reuters/David Becker
Amid all the Mueller report uncertainty, one thing is clear: Donald Trump did some wildly improper things to win the presidency. So did Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, JFK and George W. Bush.
Interim Dean, College of Education // J.F. Ackerman Professor of Social Studies Education // Director, Ackerman Center // Associate Director, Purdue Center for Economic Education, Purdue University