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| Chapter 2: The Founding and the Constitution |
| Get Involved |
How much do you know about the content and the history of the United States Constitution? If your answer is “Not much,” then you are not alone. Public opinion surveys, quizzing Americans of all ages, often find many with a low comprehension of their United States government.
A 2005 survey by Harris Interactive, on behalf of the American Bar Association, found that only a narrow majority of Americans could identify the three branches of their government as the legislative, executive and judicial. But if you are interested in learning more about the Constitution, and about America’s “Founding Era,” there have never been so many resources available online for you to research. |
1. There is no substitute, when studying the U.S. Constitution, for reading the actual document, and other documents of its era. The Avalon Project at Yale University at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/18th.asp has an extensive list of online 18th century documents that accompany the Constitution.
Of special interest are the online notes that James Madison took of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, located at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/debcont.asp, where you can read the actual debates surrounding the Constitution. What did the “Founding Fathers” in Philadelphia have to say about slavery? Read the discussion on August 22, 1787, and summarize the debate. |
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| 1b. What did the “Founding Fathers” say about the possibility of impeaching the executive branch? Read the discussion on July 20, 1787, and summarize the debate. |
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2. After you have done some research, now test your “Constitution IQ” at ConstitutionFacts.com. This website provides several quizzes that test basic facts about the Constitution and U.S. government.
Take the quick, 10-question Constitution I.Q. quiz located at: http://www.constitutionfacts.com/index.cfm?page=quiz.cfm What is the longest possible time a person can serve as President? Why? |
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| 2b. What does it mean for an accused person to invoke the Fifth Amendment? |
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| 2c. How did you score on the quiz? What is your Constitution I.Q. according to the quiz results? What is the average score for people from your state? What is the average score nationally? |
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