The U.S. Constitution: A Reader

by Hillsdale College Politics Faculty

If laws are required by the fact that men are not angels, Madison writes, controls on the government are required by the fact that angels do not govern men.

Sections VII through XI describe the two great challenges to the Declaration and the Constitution. These two challenges are very different in large respects, but they have something in common. The positive good school of slavery, which would have read the Declaration out of the American political tradition, and which would have made the Constitution the shield of human slavery in the federal territories and

in the slave states, arises from a new view of nature, a historical view. Progressivism, which has in modern times remade the federal government both in purpose and in scope, also arises from a historical view. In its early account, "the laws of nature and of nature's God" are themselves constructs of a particular time and set of circumstances and not the abiding things they purport to be. In a later Progressive account, these eternal laws are indeed eternal, but because they are eternal the arrangements of the Constitution cannot be. In the nature of things, circumstances change radically. As they change, government must be able to adapt freely, without constraint. The protection of our property, argues Franklin Roosevelt, requires that we surrender that property to the government freely. The defense of our rights, he argues, requires that we empower the government far beyond the limits permitted by the Constitution.

The Declaration is the golden apple, and the Constitution the silver frame around it that holds it in place and provides the structure. In the first we may find the purposes of the American republic. In the second we may find its method of operation.

Those who wrote the Declaration were committing an act of treason against the most powerful sovereign on earth.

Alexander Hamilton said that the rights named in both the Declaration and the Constitution "are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments," but rather "they are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself."

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders

which they should commit on the Inhabitants o...

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine

Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.

Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper

tone and spirit called for by t...

Written in the tradition of Aristotle's teacher, Plato—and of Plato's teacher, Socrates—the Nicomachean Ethics addresses the question, "What is the best life for man?"

And since there are many actions and arts and kinds of knowledge, the ends also turn out to be many: of medical knowledge the end is health, of shipbuilding skill it is a boat, of strategic art it is victory, of household management it is wealth.

And it would seem to belong to the one that is most governing and most a

master art, and politics appears to be of this sort, since it prescribes which kinds of knowledge ought to be in the cities, and what sorts each person ought to learn and to what extent; also, we see that the most honored capacities, such as generalship, household economics, and rhetorical skill, are under this one.

For even if the good is the same for one person and for a city, that of the city appears to be greater, at least, and more complete both to achieve and to preserve; for even if it is achieved for only one person that is something to be satisfied with, but for people or for cities it is something more beautiful and more divine. So our pursuit aims at this, and is in a certain way political.

The things that are beautiful and just, about which politics investigates, involve great disagreement and inconsistency, so that they are thought to belong only to convention and not to nature.

So one ought to be content, when speaking about such things and reasoning from such things, to point out the truth roughly and in outline, and when speaking about things that are so for the most part, and reasoning from things of that sort, to reach conclusions that are also of that sort.

And it is necessary also to take each of the things that are said in the same way, for it belongs to an educated person to look for just so much precision in each kind of discourse as the nature of the thing

one is concerned with admits; for to demand demonstrations from a rhetorician seems about like accepting probable ...

things. Therefore, good judgment goes along with the way each one is educated, and the one who has been educated about everything has it in an unqualified way.

For knowledge

comes to such people without profit, as it does to those who lack self-restraint; but to those who keep their desires in proportion and act in that way, knowing about these things would be of great benefit.

Now to review all the opinions is perhaps rather pointless, and it would be sufficient to review the ones that come most to prominence or seem to have some account to give.

One must begin from what is known, but this has two meanings, the things known to us and the things that are known simply. Perhaps then we, at any rate, ought to begin from the things that are known to us. This is why one who is going to listen adequately to discourse about things that are beautiful and just, and generally about things that pertain to political matters, needs to have been beautifully brought up by means of habits.

Altogether best is he who himself has insight into all things, But good in his turn is he who trusts one who speaks well. But whoever neither himself discerns, nor, harkening to another, Lays to heart what he says, that one for his part is a useless man.

But refined and active people choose honor, for this is pretty much the goal of political life.

it is clear, then, that at least according to these people, virtue is something greater, and one might perhaps assume that this, rather than honor, is the end of the political life.

friends. But no doubt it would be admitted to be better, indeed to be necessary when keeping the truth safe is at stake, even to abandon the things that are one's own, both for other reasons and because we are philosophers; for while both [the truth and one's friends] are loved, it is a sacred thing to give the higher honor to the truth.

it is clear that there could not be any common good that is one and universal, for if there were it could not have been meant in all the ways of attributing being but only in one.

Now since the ends seem to be more than one, while we choose some of them on account of something else, such as wealth, flutes, and instrumental things generally, it is clear that they are not all complete, but it is manifest that the highest good is something complete.

And we say that a thing that is pursued on account of itself is more complete than a thing pursued on account of something else, and that

what is never chosen on account of anything else is more complete than things chosen both for themselves and on account of something else, and hence that, in an unqualified sense, the complete is what is chosen always for itself and never on account of anything else.

And the same thing appears to follow from its self-sufficiency, for the complete good seems to be self-sufficient.

What's more, we suppose happiness to be the most choiceworthy of all things while not counting it as one of those things, since if it were counted among them it is clear that it would be more choiceworthy together with the tiniest amount of additional good, for the thing added becomes a preeminence of good, and of good things, the greater is always more worthy of choice. So happiness appears to be something complete and self-sufficient, and is, therefore, the end of actions.

For living seems to be something shared in even by plants, but something peculiarly human is being sought. Therefore, one must divide off the life that consists in nutrition and growth.

So let the good have been sketched in outline in this way, for presumably one needs to rough it in first and then inscribe the details later.

And one ought not to demand a reason in all things alike, either, but it is sufficient in some cases for it to be shown beautifully that something is so, in particular such things as concern first principles; that something is so comes first and is a first principle. And of first principles, some are beheld by way of examples, others by sense perception, others by becoming experienced in

some habit, and others in other ways. So one must try to go after each of them by the means that belong to its nature, and be serious about distinguishing them rightly, since this has great weight in what follows. For the beginning seems to be more than half of the whole, and many of the things that are inquired after become illuminated along with it.

them. The Founders' interest in classical languages was not academic, but political and philosophical.