Constitution Day, 2019


This Tuesday, September 17, 2019, is Constitution Day. A federal law enacted in 2004 mandates all publicly funded educational institutions, and all federal agencies, provide educational programming on the history of the American Constitution on that day. In May 2005, the United States Department of Education announced the enactment of this law and that it would apply to any school receiving federal funds of any kind. As a social studies teacher in a public high school I am thus mandated to specifically teach on the U. S. Constitution on this day. Here are my prefatory remarks before showing my classes this presentation by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano discussing the Constitution.

Freedom is the genius of American civilization. Other great nations have been born in conquest. Ours began with the Declaration of Independence (and the Constitution), and the enshrining of the idea of the natural rights of man. It was founded, not on the power of the State, but on the liberty of the individual. That principle of individual liberty has had its good days and its bad days in the United States; it’s been denied to many groups of people for far too long. But the ideal has always survived. It is our answer and our hope.

Here are some brief remarks on the Constitution today by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano. Judge Napolitano served as a New Jersey Superior Court judge from 1987 to 1995, and has written nine books on the Constitution and other legal and political subjects.

 

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3:14 pm on September 14, 2019