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We were concerned about the path of “Super Storm” Sandy and whether it might have damaged or destroyed irreplacable historical treasures on the east coast, especially those in the states that made up the 13 original colonies.
Today we received an email from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation which stated:
Some of you have asked how Monticello fared during Hurricane Sandy, so I thought I would send an update.
We didn't lose any of our old trees, and there was no damage to the house, which has withstood more than two hundred years of inclement weather.
We are in much better shape than expected, but our thoughts are with people who suffered serious damage and many of whom are still without power.
Thanks again for the good thoughts. We hope to see you up on the mountaintop soon!
Sincerely,
Leslie G. Bowman
President and CEO of Monticello
Thanks again for the good thoughts. We hope to see you up on the mountaintop soon!
Welcome to part 9 of our 10-part lecture series produced by Hillsdale College entitled “Constitution 201.”
Each lecture lasts approximately 40 minutes. Lectures and other study materials will be included and are available to our readers. We expect to present all 10 parts before Election Day.
Each lecture lasts approximately 40 minutes. Lectures and other study materials will be included and are available to our readers. We expect to present all 10 parts before Election Day.
Overview
Post-1960s Progressivism has steadily eroded religious liberty and the freedom of association in America. Measures such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) and many anti-discrimination laws express a new understanding of rights that rejects the Founders’ view of religious liberty and the freedom of private associations to govern themselves. Recent Progressivism follows the early Progressive belief that effective freedom requires government to redistribute resources in order to provide equal access to the goods that promote mental development and that make life comfortable. This redistributive agenda is combined with a new emphasis on the empowerment of victim groups, sexual liberation, and an aversion to traditional Christianity and Judaism that requires government intervention in the internal affairs of private organizations. Religious liberty today is divorced from the freedom of association and the free exercise of religion, which the Founders understood to be essential for a free society.
Thomas G. West is the Paul and Dawn Potter Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College, where he has taught since 2011. Dr. West teaches courses in American politics, with a focus on the U.S. Constitution, civil rights, foreign policy, and the political thought of the American founding. He also teaches course in political philosophy, with particular emphasis on Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke.
Prior to joining the faculty at Hillsdale, Dr. West was Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas, where he taught from 1974 to 2011. Formerly a visiting scholar at the Heritage Foundation and at Claremont McKenna College, Dr. West is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, where he teaches in the Institute’s Publius and Lincoln Fellows summer programs. He is the author of the best-selling "Vindicating the Founders": Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America, and co-translator of Four Texts on Socrates: Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito, and Aristophanes’ Clouds, of which there are more than 180,000 copies in print. He received his B.A. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from the Claremont Graduate University.
SUGGESTED READINGS
NOTE: all readings link to Hillsdale's online Constitution Reader, also available at ConstitutionReader.com.
Next week we will bring you “Restoring Constitutional Government,” the tenth and final lecture in Hillsdale College’s “Constitution 201, “Restoring Constitutional Government,” presented by Hillsdale College president, Dr. Larry P. Arnn. Your comments on this series are welcome.
ALEXANDER HAMILTONToday marks the 225th anniversary of The Federalist—the series of essays that helped make our Constitution a reality. Historians generally agree that the Federalist’s likely chief architect was founder Alexander Hamilton, thereby making Hamilton our “founding blogger” along with coauthors James Madison, and John Jay.
Better known today as The Federalist Papers, these essays caused a sensation when they started appearing in October 1787, as a response to a rival set of essays.
JOHN ADAMS & THOMAS JEFFERSONNegative campaigning in America was fathered by two lifelong friends, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. In 1776, the dynamic duo combined powers to help claim America's independence, and they had nothing but love and respect for one another. But by 1800, party politics had so distanced the men that, for the first and only time in U.S. history, a president (Adams) found himself running against his vice president.
Things got ugly very quickly when Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force nor firmness of neither a man or the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams are said to have thrown the first mud at each other in the presidential election of 1800.
Jefferson accused his old pal — of being a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal and a tyrant.
Adams returned fire, calling his vice president and challenger Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”
One wonders what the average citizen of 1800 thought about those lies and name-calling, which have become an ugly fixture of our politics ever since.
"For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
—President Kennedy, June 1963
Fifty years ago on this day, in what is now known as the “Cuban Missile Crisis,” which began on October 15, 1962, when U.S. intelligence personnel analyzing U-2 spy plane data discovered that the Soviets were building medium-range missile sites in Cuba. The next day, President Kennedy secretly convened an emergency meeting of his senior military, political, and diplomatic advisers to discuss the ominous development. The group became known as ExCom, short for Executive Committee. After rejecting a surgical air strike against the missile sites, ExCom decided on a naval blockade on the Soviet sattelitenation and a demand that the bases be dismantled and missiles removed. On the night of October 22, Kennedy went on national television to announce his decision. During the next six days, the crisis escalated to a breaking point as the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war between the two superpowers.
Welcome to part 7 of our 10-part lecture series produced by Hillsdale College entitled “Constitution 201.”
Each lecture lasts approximately 40 minutes. Lectures and other study materials will be included and are available to our readers. We expect to present all 10 parts before Election Day, November 6.
Progressives undertook the transformation of America’s political institutions—in particular the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches—to reflect their understanding that government is divided into politics (representation of the will of the people) and administration (development and implementation of civic policies and programs determined by scientific expertise). This administrative system, in which Congress delegates its lawmaking authority to regulatory agencies, replaces the centrality of the consent of the governed with the rule of unelected, bureaucratic experts.
About The Lecturer
Kevin Portteus is associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College, where he has taught since 2008. Dr. Portteus is faculty advisor for the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program, and teaches courses in American political thought and American political institutions.
A visiting graduate faculty member in the American History and Government program at Ashland University, Dr. Portteus formerly taught at Belmont Abbey College and Mountain View College, in Dallas. Having published online through the Washington Times, Human Events, and BigGovernment.com, his book, Executive Details: Public Administration and American Constitutionalism, is under review for publication. He received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Ashland University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in politics from the University of Dallas.
Retired major general, USAF Chuck Yeager retraced history on Sunday, 65 years to the minute, as the first test pilot to break the sound barrier, taking to the skies once again to fly faster than the speed of sound.
James Madison did more than any other individual to create the U. S. Constitution. This Constitution Day. We bring you “: James Madison, Father of the Constitution.”
By David A. Walsh is the editor of the History News Network.
With Labor Day behind us and autumn standing by, college students everywhere are returning to campuses (my son begins classes today a UW-Oshkosh). While schools in the United States cannot compete with European universities when it comes to the ancientness of their campuses (Oxford University's oldest building dates back to 1320 -- it is now, oddly enough, a cafe), the oldest American universities boast halls and dormitories that easily pre-date our independence from Great Britton.
What follows is a list of some of the oldest university buildings in the United States. Only one building per campus, and, since otherwise we'd never leave the Eastern seaboard, the oldest university building west of the Mississippi is included. >>Continue reading
As you probably know by now, former astronaut Neil Armstrong left planet Earth for the Final time on Saturday, he was 82. Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, is remembered here by his friend and fellow astronaut Eugene Cernan who was the last man to walk on the moon on December 11, 1972 (APOLLO 17).
Our nation’s founders left us numerous warnings concerning what would happen if we violated the principles that they had put in place. They warned that our nation's future depended on its citizens acknowledging God and submitting to His principles. To do otherwise would result in rampant immorality and deteriorating political prosperity. Finally, they warned this would ultimately lead to a national denial of God's headship and bring with it God's judgment on America and her people.
Here is what Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence andthird President of the United States had to say on God's judgment of America:
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever."—Thomas Jefferson
Last month it was reported widely that Reverend Billy Graham had penned a new prayer letter to America in which he shares his concern and dismay with America’s declining morality. Here is an article pertaining to this letter which was published in the Huffington Post.
A book once owned by George Washington containing his personal annotated copy of the U.S. Constitution and a copy of the Bill of Rights sold for nearly $10 million at a New York auction Friday.
According to the Associated Press, the 223-year-old book says “President of the United States” on the cover and is marked up with brackets and notes Washington made about the responsibilities of the president. Read more…
The “Stars and Stripes”, the official National symbol of the United States of America was authorized by congress on that Saturday of June 14, 1777 in the fifth item of the day’s agenda. The entry in the journal of the Continental Congress 1774-1789 Vol. Vlll 1777 reads “Resolved that the flag of the thirteen United States be Thirteen stripes alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
In Waubeka (in the town of Fredonia, Ozaukee County), Wisconsin, in 1885 Bernard John Cigrand a nineteen year old school teacher in a one room school placed a 10” 38 star flag in an inkwell and had his students write essays on what the flag meant to them. He called June 14th the flag’s birthday. Stony Hill School is now a historical site. From that day on Cigrand dedicated himself to inspire not only his students but also all Americans in the real meaning and majesty of our flag.
Thursday, November 1, 2012 at 10:42 AM 
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