VIDEO: Watch SIA 101.1: Declaration of Independence – Part I (Video time: 48 minutes)
REQUIRED READING:
- Declaration of Independence (pages 37 – 45 in Introduction to American Citizenship)
- Speakeasy Ideas Handout on the Declaration
TERMS, PEOPLE, & PLACES TO IDENTIFY
Where there is a time mark, the answer is provided at the time indicated in the relevant podcast or video. Where there is no time mark indicated, the student should look up in a book or perform an Internet search for the term, person, or place.
- United States Code (1:45)
- What does score mean in terms of time?
- What does it mean to be influential?
- Pagination
- Ameliorating
- Lexicon
- Nihilistic
- Immutable
- Malleable
- Charles Edward Merriam (Where, when, and what subject did he teach?)
- Carl Becker (What book did he write about the Declaration of Independence?)
- John Locke (When did he live? What books on government did he write?)
- Montesquieu (When did he live? What books on government did he write?)
- Algernon Sidney (In what context did Thomas Jefferson refer to him?)
- Aristotle (When did he live? For what is he famous?)
- Thurgood Marshall (On what court did he sit and when?)
- Antonin Scalia (On what court did he sit and when? How did he think the Constitution should be interpreted?)
- Robert Taney (Who appointed him to the Supreme Court, and when?)
- Dred Scott (Who was he and what made his court case so infamous?)
- Robert Bork (Was nominated by whom to what position, yet was failed to be confirmed?)
- William Rehnquist (Was Chief Justice beginning when and ending when?)
- Bill Clinton (When was he President of the United States?)
- What year was Woodrow Wilson elected President of the United States?
- What year did the Titanic Sink?
STUDY QUESTIONS
- What are the four organic laws found at the beginning of the U.S. legal code? (1:58)
- Why start with the Declaration of Independence when learning about the founding of the United States? (2:30 – 5:59)
- Does Charles Merriam believe liberty to be a natural right? (11:21)
- From where does Charles Merriam believe individuals derive their liberty? (11:30)
- What year was the U.S. Constitution written? (18:12)
- Why will these teachings about the U.S. founding be challenging? (34:48 – 38:18)
- What is multicultural doctrine? (38:18 – 41:22)
- What is the classical view (old way) of human nature? (41:22 – 44:11)
- What is the modern view of human nature? (44:11 – 45:22)
- Why do modern progressives like the modern view of human nature? (45:22 – 47:09)
- What poses a great challenge to understanding the Declaration of Independence as the founders understood it? (47:10 – 47:30)
- Why is it important to understand multiculturalism? (47:30)
ADDITIONAL SUGGESTED READINGS:
Carl Becker, The Declaration of Ideas: A Study in the History of Political Ideas
