The Constitution: What Is It?

So back in Omaha I get this email from the Elder’s Quorum President in our ward asking for a volunteer law school student to teach 11 year olds the requirements of the citizenship in the nation merit badge. Torn by my laziness (with a bit of busyness as I was still in law school) and a duty as an eagle scout to try to help others achieve that same goal, I decided to respond with a half hearted “…if you really need me and as a last resort…” kind of answer. Of course my offer was immediately accepted and told the time to show up. I looked over the requirements of the citizenship in the nation merit badge and was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of stuff that I already enjoy like: “What are the duties of citizenship? What is in the Constitution, amendments, Declaration of Independence, etc? What recent national news events affect you and your family?” In the end I was semi-ok with teaching the kids about this stuff as it is pretty important.

We skip ahead in the story to the night I was actually teaching (which is why I am telling this story in the first place). We were on requirement #4 which asks the scouts to discuss with the instructor how life in the United States would be different without these documents: Declaration of Independence, Preamble to the Constitution, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Amendments to the Constitution. We briefly struggled with the concept that we were a colony of Great Britain and we declared our independence from her (some scouts thought we had always been independent and the declaration of independence was our way of telling the world “we were #1”). After we got over that difficulty and made it past the Preamble (which I would expect all of you to be capable of passing after my last post on the Preamble), we got to the point of this whole story. I asked the scouts about the Constitution and what it does for us. The answers? All incorrect. At no time did any of the four (semi-smart for 11 year olds) scouts get anything in the actual Constitution. Which leaves me this depressing thought, either elementary schools fail to teach basic United States history anymore (which I don’t believe but I’ll get into that later) or people don’t know they know what is in the Constitution. Is this just an epidemic hitting Council Bluffs 11 year old males or is this a general feeling of everyone? If I took you in to a room and ask you how the United States would be different if we didn’t have the Constitution, what would you say?

The best way to talk about this is in the vast amount of incorrect answers the scouts gave me. The best way to sum up their answers is that they always began like this…”We have the right to…”. This is one of the most prevalent myths of all time, “the Constitution gives you rights.” First off, remember that there is a difference between the Constitution and its amendments. As the merit badge requirements show you have to independently speak on difference between things found in the Constitution and things found between the First and Twenty-seventh Amendments. At no time does the Constitution (all seven articles) give anyone any rights except maybe the right to make contracts or maybe right to “full faith and credit” with each state. So the Constitution must talk about something else right? The thing that gets me is that everyone knows it but they don’t know they know it.

Here is an overview of the seven articles that make up the Constitution…

Article 1 - The Legislative Branch

Article 2 - The Executive Branch

Article 3 - The Judicial Branch

Article 4 - The States

Article 5 - Amendment Process

Article 6 - Debts, Supremacy, Oaths

Article 7 - Ratification

…As you can tell it is how our government is setup. Nothing too complicated right?

Next time I’ll go over some specifics that I find interesting in these seven articles before moving on to the Amendments afterward. Also if you guys have any questions involving the specifics in the Constitution let me know and I’ll look it up before the next post.

Have a great day!