For fifteen years now, I’ve had the rather grand and humbling privilege of teaching the entirety of the U.S. Constitution to freshmen each spring semester in the American Heritage core course.
As I’m sure many of my colleagues do, I force my students to know each of the seven articles (1787) in detail, along with the first 10 amendments (1791). We spend quite a bit of time discussing the nature of republican government, the influence of the Western tradition on the structure of the document itself (especially the three branches of government), and the actual debates among the convention members.
While I applaud faculty across the country who look to The Federalist Papers as a source for understanding the moment and the era, it should be noted, as well, that it’s never enough to look at The Federalist Papers merely, as if they constituted some ideological, cohesive whole or as if they presented answers to all constitutional questions.
See the full article by Bradley J. Birzer, September 11, 2022