In the Declaration of Independence, our founding generation announced our unalienable rights, and further recognized that “to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” Soon they would write and ratify a Constitution “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.” Finally, they elected President Washington and the first Congress, who would build institutions to actually administer our Constitution.

In short, America’s founding required ideas and institutions—and statesmen and citizen capable of both. It also required an unprecedented era of constitutional conversation among Americans, and between the United States and the world. That is the purpose of this course: pursuing a deeper understanding of our Constitution by studying the intellectual and political debates surrounding its founding, from the original ideas to the original institutions.

Image: United States Capitol (“Federal Capitol”) Floor Plan, Library of Congress

Adam White discusses the Supreme Court in American Law & Politics

This course is part of our Constitutional Studies Program. Fellows should expect to spend the morning in seminar; afternoons and some evenings will be devoted to guest speaker sessions and other class activities. All fellows receive residential accommodations and a $500 stipend to offset travel and living expenses.

Faculty

Adam J. White

Adam J. White is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on American constitutionalism. Concurrently, he codirects the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

Adam J. White

Adam J. White is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on American constitutionalism, the Supreme Court, and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

Mr. White previously practiced constitutional and administrative law, particularly in the regulation of energy and the environment, finance, and telecommunications. He was a research fellow for Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow for the Manhattan Institute. He started his legal career as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

The author of a wide range of essays, book reviews, law review articles, and book chapters, Mr. White has appeared in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, National Affairs, Commentary, The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and the Notre Dame Law Review. He is a regular contributor to the Yale Journal on Regulation’s “Notice and Comment” blog, and for many years he was one of The Weekly Standard’s primary writers on constitutional law and the Supreme Court.

Mr. White has testified before a variety of US House and US Senate committees, including the Senate Judiciary Committee; the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial, and Antitrust Law (currently known as the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law); the Senate Commerce Committee; and the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

In 2017 he was appointed to serve on the Administrative Conference of the United States. He also serves on the boards of two nonprofit organizations: Speech First and the Land Conservation Assistance Network.

He has a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of business administration from the College of Business at the University of Iowa.

Gary J. Schmitt

Gary J. Schmitt is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies program at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies issues related to the American presidency, the U.S. constitution and its principles, and American civic life.

Gary J. Schmitt

Gary J. Schmitt is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies program at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies issues related to the American presidency, the U.S. constitution and its principles, and American civic life. Dr. Schmitt also writes on national security topics.

A former minority staff director of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Dr. Schmitt was executive director of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (then known as the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board). Before joining AEI, he was executive director of the Project for the New American Century.

Dr. Schmitt is the author, coauthor, editor, and coeditor of many books. In the area of civics and constitutional studies, his books include “McCulloch v. Maryland at 200: Debating John Marshall’s Jurisprudence” (AEI Press, 2020); “The Imperial Presidency and the Constitution” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017); “Is Congress Broken? The Virtues and Defects of Partisanship and Gridlock” (Brookings Institution Press, 2017); “The Professions and Civic Life” (Lexington Books, 2016); and “Trendsetting Charter Schools: Raising the Bar for Civic Education” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).

 

Vincent Phillip Muñoz

Vincent Phillip Muñoz is the Tocqueville Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. What does it mean to possess a natural right? What are inalienable rights?
  2. What does it mean to claim “that all men are created equal”? Equal in what capacity? And what is the relationship between equality and consent as a requirement for just government?

Readings:

  • Tocqueville, Democracy in America, II.I. 1,2,5
    • “The Philosophic Method of the Americans”
    • “The Principal Sources of Beliefs among Democratic Peoples”
    • “How, in the United States, Religion is Able to Make Use of Its Democratic Instincts”
  • Tocqueville, Democracy in America, I.II. 9: “Principal Causes that Tend to Maintain the Democratic Republic in the United States”
    • “Religion Considered as a Political Institution and How It Powerfully Contributes to the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic Among the Americans”
    • “Indirect Influence of Religious Beliefs upon Political Society in the United States”
    • “The Principal Causes That Make Religion Powerful in America”

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Tocqueville famously claimed that religion is the first of America’s political institutions. What did Tocqueville mean by this?
  2. What role does religion play in a flourishing democracy? What is the proper relationship between church and state and how can this relationship be maintained?

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Biography Image

Adam J. White

Adam J. White is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on American constitutionalism. Concurrently, he codirects the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

Biography Image

Ryan P. Hanley

Ryan Patrick Hanley is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. His research in the history of political philosophy focuses on the Enlightenment. He is the author of Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life and Love’s Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity.

Biography Image

Robert C. Bartlett

Robert C. Bartlett is the Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College. His principal area of research is classical political philosophy, with particular attention to the thinkers of ancient Hellas, including Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. He is the co-translator of a new edition of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.