Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Constitution of the United States A



Over the next few days we are going to take a tour of the Constitution of the United States.

The Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


Preamble Note

This gives you some insight into the Preamble and why the Constitution was written and the reasons behind the statements in the Preamble. It says in part,

promote the general Welfare

This, and the next part of the Preamble, are the culmination of everything that came before it — the whole point of having tranquility, justice, and defense was to promote the general welfare — to allow every state and every citizen of those states to benefit from what the government could provide. The framers looked forward to the expansion of land holdings, industry, and investment, and they knew that a strong national government would be the beginning of that.

and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

Hand in hand with the general welfare, the framers looked forward to the blessings of liberty — something they had all fought hard for just a decade before. They were very concerned that they were creating a nation that would resemble something of a paradise for liberty, as opposed to the tyranny of a monarchy, where citizens could look forward to being free as opposed to looking out for the interests of a king. And more than for themselves, they wanted to be sure that the future generations of Americans would enjoy the same

You hear lots of people on the Republican side decrying the new Health Care law. One of my Lodge Brothers put this on my Facebook in responsed to the post below.

They should also be held accountable for their ignorance of Article I section 8 (clauses 3 and 18) and Article VI section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. It's okay- go ahead and look them up. That's more then the House Republicans have done.
It got me to thinking and so for the next few days we are going to be examining the Constitution. It is BASIC to this country and I doubt most of us have read it. I may ask another Brother for a guest post on it because I know he carries a copy of the Constitution around with him. I am no Constitutional Lawyer but I did teach Elementary School and I doubt that my students remember it but when I was teaching fifth grade US History (not the Texas version) was a part of the curriculum and we did study it and review it. It doesn't hurt to look it over again. So join me for a week or so as we look at this most radical document. And don't believe everything you are told... look it up. Comments welcome.

2 comments:

John said...

An EXCELLENT plan. Same thing's happening around here. People are yelling about how x, y, or z is unconstitutional without having even a basic knowledge of the document, let alone any idea of the volumes of interpretations by generations of scholars.

GO FOR IT!!!

Don said...

I kinda wish people had to take a test before they get to vote. At least we'd know everyone had some basic knowledge of this country's government and how it works.