Jefferson’s Lesson Plan for Democracy and His Failing Nation
Slavery wasn’t the only compromise in the Constitution, a major omission has led to our current fractured nation, can it be rectified?
The Original Framers of the United States induced our nation’s birth with lifesaving compromises in the Constitution. These compromises resulted in a new healthy nation that reflected our nation’s first motto; E Pluribus Unum (“out of many, one”). The Original Framers’ constructed a governmental skeletal backbone, known as the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, that was intended to ensure the country’s unification and viability. The Civil War showed that these compromises not only failed to unify the United States, but they further fractured the nation. History’s heroic nostalgic and somewhat hazy view of the nation’s conception has obscured the harsh choices made by the Framers centered in our Constitutional debates since its ratification. The consequences of those choices live on in today’s conflicts and divisions. Today, even the definition of the word ‘patriot’ has become divisive.
My apolitical public Facebook public page has garnered over 12,000 followers in less than six months. This page focuses on sharing history not told widely, consistently, or completely. The page’s followers come from across the political spectrum from the extreme left to the extreme right including independents, progressives, libertarians, and centrists. I recently posed this question on my page: “How do you define patriot?” There were a variety of answers, some sarcastic or humorous, others were cynical, and most were political. Here is a sampling of some of the answers as written:
1. In one all-defining word: Empathy. For all people. Which requires understanding, and leads to respect, and is the crux of what every citizen of every country should show in their words and in their actions, and which should be the defining boundary of every country. Maybe one day…
2. Allegiance to the Constitution; justice and liberty for all; fealty to the words of Emma Lazarus
3. Someone who respects the rule of law and the Constitution and not just someone who waves a flag in front of their house and a really true patriot is someone who gave their life for this country especially in World War II I salute you all God bless
4. Not becoming a Republican
5. Someone with understanding, empathy, and acceptance for ALL the citizens of their country despite differences. One who cares for and fights for the rights given to ALL people of their country despite differences. Someone who cares and does something to help the plight of the burdened and shunned.
6. Everyone who puts country above party.
7. Fidelity to the Constitution
8. Anyone who stands for the peoples rights and what is right any who gets between the people and the threat to it foreign or domestic and at this point there is no threat greater then our own government
9. Someone who, while not liking what any particular government of the time might do or decide, will still love, fight for and not bad mouth the actual country.
10. Ambrose Bierce defined it as someone who believes the dirt of his country is superior to that of all others.
11. Someone who does not quite understand what their country stands for? Someone who believes their country is not a corrupt mess? Cannon fodder? Don’t listen to me. I’m old and cynical!
12. Someone who loves their country and distinguishes between love of government and the love of country. Don’t hate America! Hate your installed regime leaders!
13. Someone who has compassion and cares for the needs of his fellow countrymen, regardless of social status, skin color or accent.
14. I took an oath to the Constitution. Not everyone has. I hold it dearly still, even tho I took it 40 years ago.
15. Support for what America was supposed to stand for: Freedom for All & Opportunity for All!
16. Care more FOR your neighbor than yourself.
17. Be willing to stand should to shoulder WITH your neighbor in defence of your neighborhood. IN THAT ORDER!
18. Someone who DOESN’T set up an invasion on the Capitol!
19. Fighting for the rights of all your county men and to keep your nose out of their private business
20. Love of country, not government
21. A participating member of our democracy. Up on current events, not ignorant of them. A voter, a volunteer, a good neighbor.
22. How about someone who does NOT commit sedition?!
23. Someone who loves their country and wants to see it better itself by moving forward. Not hanging onto the same ideals it had a 50, 100 or 200+ years ago. That’s the antithesis of bettering itself.
24. Someone who considers their country first.
25. Apathetic. Hypocritical. Spineless. Coward. Liars. Deserving every bit of this. Why are illegals pouring over our southern border? TX, NM, AZ & CA “patriots” are APATHETIC. Why did our president endure the 24/7 harassment from the MSM? Spinelessness. Why do “patriots” only post memes when every alphabet agency is corrupt? Hypocrisy. Why is the largest standing army complying with this corrupt government? Cowardice. And where did all these “patriotic” memes come from? LIARS.
Reading through these responses, it is evident that the definition of “patriot” is a hot button, controversial, political, and divisive. Merriam Webster defines a patriot as “a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors.” If we can’t even agree on the definition of who is devoted to their country, how can we agree on the issues that frame debate and directly impact every American?
Looking over the past 250+ years of U.S. history, one would think we are more polarized than ever — but is that true? The American Revolution split those who were loyal to the British government with those that wanted independence. The Sons of Liberty who helped to lead the Revolution were actually “insurrectionists” according to Merriam Webster’s definition of one who commits an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government but today, they are considered “patriots.”
I am not Pollyannish (unrealistically optimistic) but I am pragmatic. I do not profess to having an answer to unifying our nation. Even after we were attacked on our own soil on 9/11, setting aside our differences to confront an outside attack dissolved after about 48 hours as people began to point fingers and turn on their Muslim friends and neighbors. It seems that events that should unify our nation, ultimately end up creating more division. Here are some momentous historical events that could have unified the nation but did the opposite:
- Reconstruction resulted in the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.
- The Civil Rights Movement brought resistance from whites who viewed Blacks as a threat to their professional and personal positions.
- The creation and spread of the Internet allowing people to group with likeminded thinkers, amplified set biases rather than challenging them, and limited other points of views that lead to polarization and popularization of ungrounded conspiracy theories.
- Global warming, which impacts the entire planet, has been politicized because it requires lifestyle, commerce, and regulation changes affecting the environment, the economy, jobs, and capitalism.
- The Sandy Hook massacre resulted in a focus on gun laws and rights, which in turn drove some to buy guns and others to push harder for gun restrictions.
- January 6, 2020 is viewed by some as justified resistance like the American Revolution, while others view it as the greatest threat to our democratic institutions to date.
The consistency in this polarization is the application of political and personal labels on all sides, finger pointing, the belief that some voices are not being heard, and ultimately culminates with various perceptions of the role of the Federal government. The problem is that we cannot even agree on what are our essential American principles that set us as Americans. Before we look at our individual rights or policies, there must be an understanding of the institutions, the roles, and the how government operates in making these determinations for our country. Ultimately, these institutions create and protect the rights, rules, and laws that govern all of us, regardless of individual persuasion or political views (ideally). Although the Framers may have disagreed on policy, they recognized and created governmental institutions that would enact the people’s will and ensure that the laws created by those institutions would be respected in the Constitution. The current institutional imbalance has left our nation just as divided because the checks and balances designed by the Framers are no longer acting congruently.
So why are we in this state of conflict and division? Because most Americans don’t understand the vital role that our government institutions serve in protecting individual rights and fundamental fairness. I believe this shortcoming is due to an essential building block of a democracy that the Framers recognized but failed to protect: the right of citizens to a quality public education to support active citizenship. If this reflects the reason for our division, how do we rectify it?
It is impossible to achieve a goal until there is consensus on the objective; the steps to be taken; and individual responsibility. We do not have a common goal in the United States of America today. I personally place much of the blame on a poorly constructed and inequitable public school curriculum on history and citizenship. Because there is no federal Constitutional right to education, there are no national norms for curriculum. Past attempts at national curriculum have failed for a variety of reasons including the intent to measure education through testing which results in teaching to the test and biases in testing that punish the teachers and the students. In addition, there are biases and variations in the teaching skills, schools, districts, and states. None of these factors are included in the curriculum evaluations for improvement, just finger pointing at teachers, unions, and underperforming students for punishment.
The Original Framers had strong opinions about the vital importance of public education to teach civic engagement for citizens to participate and understand the role of a popularly elected government. Public education’s most fervent advocate was Thomas Jefferson who commented often on its importance including the following examples:
1782 — “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree.”
1786 — “I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness…Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.”
1789 — “…wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government…”
1816 — “if a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be.”
1816 — “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day”
1818 — “A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.”
1818 — “The objects of this primary education determine its character and limits. These objects are To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains”
1820 — “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves: and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is, not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. this is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
1824 — “The qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. They are the result of habit and long training.”
The lack of education as a Constitutional right was one of the Original Framers’ most severe compromises (after slavery) that was made to preserve state’s rights over universal federal protection. Although state constitutions are now required to include a provision to provide public education (a decision that was made after the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 for all states wishing to join the Union), there is no minimum standard provided for a state’s public education curriculum, funding, and citizens’ right of access. Without a strong history and civics education, we have created a body politic that does not understand our past, how government works, or each person’s role in maintaining and preserving our democracy (a term used interchangeably with the word “republic” by the Framers).
It is not a secret why our nation is divided. Instead of pointing the fingers at each other, it would be more beneficial to improve our education for all…students, adults, and seniors. We are never too old, too young, or too smart to learn. Without a common understanding of who we are, where we have been as a nation, and our citizenship responsibilities as individuals — we will not reach a consensus, nor will all people feel their voices have been heard. Jefferson saw the writing on the chalkboard; if we are true patriots who want to protect our nation’s future for all, we must educate ourselves and our fellow citizens on what it means to be an American.
