Read, in Greer, the section on the Conservative Reaction, of which the section on Edmund Burke (pp. 469-471) is the most pertinent. This will set the framework for a discussion on whether the Constitution is a conservative document (see below). Review Burke, too.
READ, in Idea of Democracy, The Constitution of the United States, pp. 41-50, this time with a special emphasis on the Bill of Rights, (Amendments 1-10). (#12, pp. 40-50)
ALSO, "Declaration of Rights of Man and of Citizens". #11, pp. 38-39.
. As far as the Constitution goes, I'd like to have you look most closely at the Preamble, Article 1 Sections 1 and 3. Article 2, Section 1, Article 3, Section 1, and Article 5. We're going to try to see how the Constitution is framed to answer the issues proposed in Federalist papers #10 and #51. We're also going to continue to consider a question which historicans have been interested in for at least one hundred years: does the Constitution of the United States represent a conservative reaction to the liberal ideas of the Declaration of Independence? If it does, then conditions in the new United States are parallel to those in Europe where conservatives rally against the excesses of the French Revolution.
The Declaration of Rights of Man and of Citizens is the French equivalent of the American Bill of Rights, and is different from the earlier American version in ways which are explained in Greer & Lewis, on pp. 458-459. This difference also returns to the issue conservative and liberal approaches to the idea of the State.
Looking Ahead: Next week I'll be working with an American Classic, the essay, Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau, pp. 75-90 of The Idea of Democracy. If you have any spare time begin to read it. This is a powerful and disturbing work. Give it some time, as it is longer than works we've read previously.
We will begin to focus on a different set of issues. How is one to behave within a democratic framework. If we grant that the majority sets policy within a democratic context, what are the limitations of dissent? Across the next several weeks we'll see a number of different kinds of cases... people excluded from the democratic dialogue by reason of race, wealth or gender. Thoreau was disqualified by none of these. Indeed, one would have to rank him with the elite of his time. Civil Disobedience raises issues of the role of conscience within a Democracy. It is a tract which was far more influential in the middle and late 20th century than it was in its own day: not only in America (Martin Luther King was directly influenced by it), but also in places half way around the globe (India, for example).
