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Required Reading/Watching
Prior to this discussion, you should have:
- Read the United States Constitution located in the Content section for Unit 2
- Read chapter 6 in The American Yawp.
- Watch Video Lecture 6: US Constitution and the New Republic
- Completed the Exam: The US Constitution
Learning Outcome(s) Addressed
- Analyze historical facts and interpretations
- Analyze and compare political, geographic, economic, social, cultural, religious, and intellectual institutions, structures, and processes across a range of historical periods and cultures
- Recognize and articulate the diversity of human experience across a range of historical periods and the complexities of a global culture and society
- Recognize the impact of geography, environment, and the natural world on the course of history and how choices are often limited by physical factors beyond the control of human beings
- Grasp the capacity of human beings to make a difference in history, and recognize the complexities of cause and effect and of intended and unintended consequences
Purpose
This discussion focuses on using research and reason instead of assumption and emotion to discuss a controversial topic. Released to the American public on September 17, 1787, the US Constitution initiated bitter debate and sometimes violence. Conflicts over the Constitution have continued ever since.
In this assignment, we return to that release date of September 17, 1787, when the document was presented for ratification. You must decide whether you support ratification of the Constitution as it is written in 1787, and show through evidence why you do or do not support ratification.
Tasks:
Step 1: Gather evidence as you can from reading the US Constitution several times. Take notes on any details that attract your attention. Also read all of Chapter 6 in American Yawp and take notes on anything that relates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Also take the exam on the Constitution to better learn the document. Also read the 1776 Declaration of Independence again, to see if anything in the 1776 document contradicts the principles in the 1787 Constitution.
Step 2: Analyze that evidence and see what it is telling you: Explore whether you would have supported the contents of the Constitution of 1787. Look at the document closely in terms of individual rights, government authority, gender roles, race relations, religion, national security, taxation, etc. Does the document go too far or not far enough on the issues you value? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this new form of government as you see it?
Step 3: Communicate your findings honestly to yourself and others: Each of you will submit a minimum of three highly detailed posts:
- Your first post will state whether you would vote for ratification or not. Thoroughly detail why you have taken your position by showing the historical evidence (statistics, events, and examples) that led you to your conclusion. Remember, it is September 17, 1787. You don’t know anything that happened after that date.
