ER MITNICK at 6/28/2010 10:55:00 PM
This entry is going to have to be short because it's already very late. (Editing this entry later, I see it's not so short!) But I will start with the end of my day first since that part was the most exciting. I got to watch the sunset from James Madison's front porch! See the pictures below.
In Madison's day, the grounds would have never been as quiet and peaceful as I found them today. Five generations of slaves lived in quarters behind the house, and Madison always had visitors at Montpelier. However, he would have viewed the sunset from the same place I was standing. The other teachers in the program and I sat on the steps until the sun went down and it began to drizzle. The view of the Blue Ridge Mountains slowly disappeared with the setting sun. You can see in the pictures the line of the Blue Ridge Mountains just above the distant tree line -- the mountains really do look blue!
Today at breakfast, Professor Ketcham sat at my table and I got to talk to him. I asked him so many questions he really didn't get to each much of his breakfast! I felt bad, but he told me a story about how FDR's father brought so many interesting guests to the dinner table, FDR often didn't remember what he had eaten. Professor Ketcham said, "I'd rather talk than eat!" I thought that was extremely nice!
His lecture today was on Madison's version of the first amendment. Madison's wording was much more specific than what ended up in the final Constitution. What is interesting about his wording is that he included words that not only protected people's rights, but that promoted good citizenship. For example, his version of "freedom of speech and freedom of the press" reads, "The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable." Madison not only wrote that people should have freedom of the press, he explained WHY they should have it -- it is "one of the great bulwarks of liberty." Madison believed that the ability to speak, write, and publish one's ideas was part of good citizenship. A "free press" is a bulwark of liberty because it is a "positive liberty" -- the liberty to take part in something. Having freedom of the press is a "bulwark" of the capacity to engage in the political process. Hence, Madison believed that having freedom of the press would not only protect people's rights, but would allow people to be good citizens. When Gouverneur Morris simplified Madison's wording, he did not intend to change the meaning of what Madison originally wrote. Thus, inherent in our first amendment is a call to practice the freedoms that promote good citizenship.
Before lunch we took a tour of the Mansion! See the picture of the outside of the house below (I'll try to get a better picture tomorrow) as well as the daytime view from the front of the house and the view from the balcony on one of the wings. In the distance, you can see the horse racing track the duPont family installed when they took over Montpelier in 1901.
In the afternoon, we heard a wonderful lecture by Sue Leeson, retired Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court and Professor of Political Theory at Willamette University. She told us about a terrific website that presents the Constitutional Convention as a drama: teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/intro.html Throughout the lecture, Judge Leeson made the story of the Constitutional Convention exciting. I am definitely going to use more of Madison's actual primary source notes when I teach the Constitutional Convention next school year. Judge Leeson explained how Madison's original vision of the Constitution in the Virginia Plan was radically different from the Constitution on which the delegates finally agreed. For example, Madison's version of the Constitution would have called for the government to essentially be only a legislative branch, with the executive and judicial branches being far less important than the Congress. When Madison saw his hard wo