Constituting America

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The Declaration, the Constitution & the Lessons of Communism

As America celebrates 250 years, what can the history of communism teach us about the enduring importance of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?

The Declaration laid out the grievances that led to American independence, and the Constitution established institutions designed to protect the rights and freedoms it proclaimed.

What happens when societies dismantle those institutions and political and economic power becomes concentrated in the hands of the state? And what can the experience of living under communist regimes teach us about protecting individual liberty, religious freedom, and constitutional government?

🎙️ Join us with special guest Dr. Eric Patterson, President and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, live Tuesday, October 6 at 2 PM ET — and bring your questions for the chat!

Learn more: https://us.constitutingamerica.org/Oct_6

📜🇺🇸 October 2, 1789: Washington Sends the Bill of Rights to the States

One week after Congress approved 12 amendments to the Constitution, President George Washington sent copies to the governors of all 11 states that had ratified the Constitution. He also sent copies to North Carolina and Rhode Island, which had not yet joined the Union.

The amendments now needed approval from three-fourths of the states. Ten were ratified on December 15, 1791, and became the Bill of Rights. Several of the original letters Washington sent that day survive in state archives, including in Rhode Island and North Carolina.



Images: George Washington, c. 1803, Stuart copy of the Athenaeum Portrait
Washington's letter transmitting the amendments, October 2, 1789 (Rhode Island State Archives

"The Manhattan Project To Develop Nuclear Weapons And The Founding Documents" 🇺🇸📜

Check out our latest essay now!

Author: Benjamin Slomski, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Campus Pre-Law Advisor at Purdue University Fort Wayne

Constituting America's 15th Online Study:
Consent of the Governed- Celebrating America's 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

"Through knowledge of the laws of nature, science could unlock extraordinary power, but statesmen also had to consult the natural law for guidance on how to use that power." — Benjamin Slomski

The Declaration of Independence invoked "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God" — an understanding that both physical and moral laws govern the universe. The Manhattan Project harnessed the physical laws of the atom, but its development and use raised questions the Founders' framework anticipated: how a free people, through their constitutional institutions, authorize and hold accountable decisions of extraordinary consequence.

📌 Learn more and enjoy today's essay here:
https://us.constitutingamerica.org/consentofthegoverned_25c

"The Manhattan Project To Develop Nuclear Weapons And Leslie Groves" 🇺🇸📜

Check out our latest essay now!

Author: Dominic Aquila, Professor of History and Director of the Allbritton Art Institute, University of St. Thomas, Houston; Visiting Research Fellow, Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford

Constituting America's 15th Online Study:
Consent of the Governed- Celebrating America's 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

"He is most demanding. He is most critical. He is always a driver, never a praiser. He is abrasive and sarcastic… He is extremely intelligent. He has the guts to make timely, difficult decisions." — Colonel Kenneth D. Nichols, on General Groves

On September 17, 1942 — his first full day in command — Groves secured 1,200 tons of high-grade uranium ore. The next day he acquired the processing site at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Together with J. Robert Oppenheimer, he produced the first atomic bomb in less than three years, on time and under budget, managing over 130,000 workers across dozens of sites.

📌 Learn more and enjoy today's essay here:
https://us.constitutingamerica.org/consentofthegoverned_25b

🇺🇸 LIVE Now on Constitutional Chats — Through 3 PM ET! 🎙️📜
What did James Madison understand about human nature and concentrated power that Karl Marx overlooked?

Tune in now for "Madison vs. Marx: The Slippery Slope of Socialism to Authoritarian Rule" with special guest Dan Mahoney, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Assumption University and Senior Research Fellow at the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

We'll compare Madison's constitutional safeguards with Marx's vision and look at how socialist systems have historically moved toward authoritarian rule.

🎙️ Join us now and chat live! Your questions get answered in real time, and the audience stays off camera, so come as you are!

Learn more: https://us.constitutingamerica.org/Sep_29

🇺🇸🎙️ Tomorrow on Constitutional Chats — "Madison vs. Marx: The Slippery Slope of Socialism to Authoritarian Rule" with special guest Dan Mahoney.

What did James Madison understand about human nature and concentrated power that Karl Marx overlooked? And why did the Framers build a Constitution designed to divide power rather than centralize it?

Dan Mahoney, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Assumption University, Senior Research Fellow for B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation, joins us to compare Madison's constitutional safeguards (separation of powers, checks and balances, and the protection of property) with Marx's vision, and to explore how socialist systems have historically drifted toward authoritarian rule. Get your questions ready!

🎙️ Join us live Tuesday at 2 PM ET — ask your questions in the chat!

Learn more: https://us.constitutingamerica.org/Sep_29

"The Manhattan Project To Develop Nuclear Weapons And The People" 🇺🇸📜

Check out our latest essay now!

Author: Dan Cotter, Member at Aronberg Goldgehn

Constituting America's 15th Online Study:
Consent of the Governed- Celebrating America's 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

"The Manhattan Project demonstrates that in a constitutional republic, popular consent does not require every governmental action to be publicly known as it occurs." — Dan Cotter

More than 125,000 Americans contributed to the Manhattan Project — scientists, engineers, construction workers, machinists, soldiers, and clerks — most knowing only a small piece of what they were building. Congress exercised its constitutional power of the purse to fund the effort, and the President directed it as Commander in Chief. The project's authority rested on constitutional institutions created by and accountable to the people.

📌 Learn more and enjoy today's essay here:
https://us.constitutingamerica.org/consentofthegoverned_25a

📜🇺🇸 September 28, 1787: Ratification Begins

The man who sent the new Constitution to the states was Charles Thomson, Secretary of Congress. Thomson served as secretary from the First Continental Congress in 1774 until 1789, the only person to hold the post that entire time.

Eleven days after the Constitution was signed in Philadelphia, the Confederation Congress, meeting in New York City, voted to send it to the states. The 12 states present voted unanimously to forward it to the state legislatures, which would call special conventions to decide whether to ratify.

The vote was actually a compromise. Supporters wanted Congress to formally endorse the Constitution, and critics wanted to add amendments first. Richard Henry Lee had proposed amendments the day before, including a bill of rights, and they were kept out of the official record. Congress sent the Constitution on without endorsing it, but the words "resolved unanimously" made it look like broad approval.

Thomson sent the Constitution to the state governors that same day. Nine states had to ratify for it to take effect. Delaware ratified first, on December 7, 1787, and New Hampshire became the ninth on June 21, 1788.

Images: Charles Thomson, Charles Willson Peale, c. 1781–82 (Independence National Historical Park); Resolution of Congress, September 28, 1787 (Library of Congress); Washington as Statesman at the Constitutional Convention, Junius Brutus Stearns, 1856 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

📜🇺🇸 September 25, 1789: Congress Proposes the Bill of Rights

Meeting at Federal Hall in New York City, then the nation's capital, the First Congress approved 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification.

James Madison introduced the amendments on June 8, 1789. The House passed 17 in August, and the Senate consolidated them into 12. At Roger Sherman's urging, the amendments were added at the end of the Constitution rather than woven into its text.

On December 15, 1791, ten of the 12 were ratified and became the Bill of Rights.

An interesting fact is that another was ratified in 1992 as the 27th Amendment, 203 years after it was proposed!

🏛️ Pictured: Washington's inauguration at Federal Hall, April 30, 1789, with the Senate's marked-up draft of the amendments.