History and Freedom

According to a recent study, only 23 percent of seniors at 55 of American’s elite universities can identify James Madison as the Father of the Constitution. Over a third cannot identify the Constitution as the founding document of our government and nearly half do not know in which half-century our nation fought the Civil War.

What does this mean for us and our country?

Thomas Jefferson wrote that the study of history protects the people “as they are the ultimate guardians of their own liberty. History, by apprising them of the past, will enable them to judge of the future.”

In other words, if future generations of Americans are not taught how their liberty came about, they will take it for granted. If they do not learn of the sacrifices that have preserved their liberty, they will be complacent in its defense. Knowledge of history is not an option if a free people are to cherish liberty and defend it with zeal.

A Challenge

It is easy to criticize schools and legislatures for failing to require and teach American History effectively and we ought to take every opportunity to push for improvements. But we also need to look to ourselves. Scripture reminds us to first remove the “log” from our own eye before offering to remove the speck from our neighbor’s eye.

Listed below are books, speeches, and historical documents that are used in Hillsdale College’s American Heritage course. While we are no doubt familiar with many of these, it is likely that we have not, in fact, actually read them and therefore may not have a full grasp of their content and significance.

So this is the challenge: Let us each commit, over a period of time, to reading some or all of these works. The exercise will improve our own knowledge of American History and thus make us better guardians of our own liberty.

	The Mayflower Compact
	John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity”
	William Penn, Frame of Government of Pennsylvania
	Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
	John Locks, Second Treatise of Government
	The Declaration of Independence
	The Constitution of the United States
	*The Federalist Papers*
	The Northwest Ordinance
	George Washington, First Inaugural and Farewell Address
	Thomas Jefferson , Kentucky Resolution and First Inaugural
	John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland
	Henry Clay, Address on Internal Improvements
	Andrew Jackson, “The majority is to Govern”
	Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
	W. Barrett Travis, Last Letter from the Alamo
	Frederick Douglas, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
	John C. Calhoun, Disquisition on Government
	Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural
	Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth”
	William L. Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall
	Theodore Roosevelt, “The New Nationalism”
	Woodrow Wilson, Fourteen Points Address
	Franklin D. Roosevelt, Commonwealth Club Address
	The Atlantic Charter
	Harry S. Truman, “The Truman Doctrine”
	George Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct”
	*Whittaker Chambers, “Letter to my Children” (from Witness)*
	John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address
	Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham City Jail & “I have a dream” Address
	Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural and Speech to the House of Commons

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The information provided here was obtained from “Standing by American History”, a pamphlet published by Hillsdale College , Hillsdale, Michigan 49242, www.hillsdale.edu. The works sited are all used in their mandatory “American Heritage” course.