July 22, 2025 • 17 mins
A fourth-grader's question about how the Declaration of Independence influenced the U.S. Constitution reveals the complex relationship between America's founding documents. Dr. Beienburg explains how the Declaration's principles and criticisms of British rule directly shaped constitutional provisions and informed the development of state constitutions.
• Declaration enumerated specific problems with British rule that the Constitution directly addressed
• Many provisions in the Bill of Rights respond to grievances listed in the Declaration
• Declaration first influenced state constitutions, which then informed the federal Constitution
• Two competing models emerged: Pennsylvania (direct democracy) and Massachusetts (structured republicanism)
• Constitution aimed to create sustainable self-government, not just immediate democratic response
• State constitutions often include philosophical language similar to the Declaration
• Constitutional principles can be traced through "genealogies" across generations of documents
• Some ideas in modern state constitutions can be traced back to founding-era documents and even European philosophers like Machiavelli
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Tenley, from Iowa and I am in fourth
grade.
My question is how did theDeclaration of Independence
influence the US Constitution?
So on a last episode and I willlink it in our show notes, we
kind of alluded to how theDeclaration influenced the US
(00:20):
Constitution and we have DrWeinberg back to kind of talk
about this, because they are twodifferent documents.
One is a again declaration thatwe're separating from Britain,
but then the US Constitution isour framework for government.
So, dr Beinberg, how did theDeclaration of Independence
influence our US Constitution?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Right.
So there's a way to think of itas having a direct influence
and a way to think of it ashaving an indirect influence.
So the direct influence is thatthe Declaration of Independence
describes basically in itsopening sections, sort of what a
proper kind of government istrying to achieve, and later on,
(01:12):
in the longer part, as wetalked about before, it's a long
list of discussions of how theBritish government, from the
perspective of the colonists, isno longer achieving those ends
Particular objections, and we'lltalk about those in a second.
So that's the sort of directconnection is here's what we
think a government should looklike, here's what we think the
British government is failing todo, and so therefore, when
they're writing the?
U, the US Constitution, theyhave both of these in mind.
So in some ways you can thinkof, many of the structures of
(01:32):
the US Constitution are directlyinstalling corrections to what
the British government had beendoing during the revolution.
So, for example, as we talkedabout one of the themes, I would
argue this is something of acontroversial take, but I would
argue that the AmericanRevolution is fundamentally a
question of local government.
(01:54):
The first several objections ofthe Declaration of Independence,
and a few others sprinkledthroughout are basically
critiques of the Britishgovernment for making it
functionally difficult tostraight up, impossible for the
local colonial legislatures tomeet, act and govern, to govern
the people.
And so at its core the USConstitution is structurally one
(02:17):
about decentralized power, andwe'll talk more about how that
connects to the Articles ofConfederation.
They certainly recognize theytilted far too.
They tilted too heavily towardlocal government with the
Articles.
But the Constitution, whenthey're fixing that, doesn't
just simply say and thereforewe're overturning that
altogether.
They say here's basically acouple other checks we have to
put on the states, here's acouple other powers we need the
(02:38):
feds to have.
But it still fundamentallymaintains that idea of local
government from the Declarationof Independence.
So we see that, as we talkedabout a little bit before, the
Americans had understood Britishliberty to require effectively
independent judges, which wassomething that existed in
England but that had been sortof lost in translation to the
(03:01):
colonies.
So Article 3 creates protocolsfor independent judges holding
terms during good behavior.
That's a phrase that literallycomes from British law the Act
of Settlement of 1701, if Irecall correctly where that gets
implemented.
But the Declaration ofIndependence protests that that
isn't being implemented in thecolonies.
(03:21):
So the US Constitutionimplements that.
So there's a critique as well inthe Declaration of Independence
.
The phrase is really fun, butit's effectively a critique of
overbearing bureaucracy.
He meaning King George,although in many ways this is
Parliament has erected amultitude of new offices and
sent hither swarms of officersto harass our people and eat out
(03:43):
their substance.
There's this sort offree-ranging bureaucracy that
seemingly is hassling us, and sothe constitution sort of
creates restrictions on thosekinds of things.
So those are in some ways.
And then obviously many of thesections of the Bill of Rights,
the civil liberties guarantees,our responses to objections in
(04:04):
the Declaration of Independence,ordering large bodies of armed
troops among us.
That translates pretty clearlyto a third amendment, not using
appropriate trial by jury, andso on and so forth, fifth, sixth
amendments.
So we see lots of structuresand civil liberties carried over
in that sense.
But another way that I think theDeclaration of Independence
(04:25):
influences the US Constitutionis that the Declaration of
Independence is often there issort of an inspiration to the
state constitutions.
In some of the cases the stateconstitutions actually parts of
them, precede the Declaration ofIndependence, because the
Continental Congress, as theywere again, they didn't just
(04:47):
come up with this and say well,we're mad today, so we're
declaring independence.
They've been kicking aroundthese debates for years, and so
they had said to the coloniesyou know, let's get ready for
independence, which means youcolonial governments are now
going to be basically stategovernments.
So start thinking through whatyour state constitutions are
going to look like before wepull the trigger and actually
(05:08):
declare independence.
And so the Declaration ofIndependence, a lot of the
language, a lot of the logic,gets translated first into those
state constitutions.
Because, again, most government,their understanding, is going
to happen at the colonial or, inturn, state level.
And so that's where you need tobuild your judges, you need to
(05:30):
build your civil libertiesguarantees, and so lots of those
things in the Declaration ofIndependence translate initially
to the state constitutions.
And, and when you know about 10years later, they're drafting
the US Constitution, thefounders of the Constitutional
Convention is able to lookaround and say, ok, what are the
(05:50):
constitutions that arehappening in the United States?
Which are the ones that wethink are working really well
and which are the ones that wethink are working not so well?
And even within those, what arethe parts of them that are
working well?
And so as I tell my students.
In some ways the USConstitutional Convention, or
particularly Madison'scommentaries on it in the
(06:10):
Federalist Papers, as I say, arealmost subtweets of the
Pennsylvania Constitution.
These are the places they wentwrong.
Conversely, it largely picks upmuch of the Massachusetts
Constitution right.
Those end up being sort of thetwo predominant models in the
sort of period between theDeclaration of Independence and
the Constitution thePennsylvania model and the
(06:32):
Massachusetts model.
But in some sense both of themare attempts to translate the
Declaration of Independence intogovernance.
The Pennsylvania Constitutionreally, really, really
emphasizes the idea of democracy, or I should say and I choose
that word carefully because itis very, very, very responsive
(06:55):
Whereas the MassachusettsConstitution very much takes the
idea of the people aresovereign, but you need
structures instead of justgiving the people what they want
immediately.
So we need to guarantee there'sstronger protection of judicial
independence in Massachusettsthan there is in Pennsylvania
Again.
So that's one where you can seethe Declaration of Independence
have a way through.
(07:15):
So the US Constitution verymuch is.
Again, I will confess I'msomewhat impatient with the
scholars who say it's arepudiation.
The Declaration of Independencewas creating this wonderful
vision of self-government by thepeople, and then evil.
James Madison swooped in tocreate this sort of elite cabal
that locks them out.
(07:36):
And so they argue effectivelythat the Pennsylvania model was
the model that should havecontinued, which is hyper-direct
democracy with very weakstructural checks.
And I and Madison and otherswant to say, yes, we do care
about government by the people,but it needs to be a sustainable
government and not justanything that a majority
(07:57):
immediately howls for.
They get it five seconds laterand then five seconds after that
they change their mind, whichis why Madison's vices the
constitutional system of theUnited States.
It's a really famous doc.
It's originally basically aninternal memo.
He sort of writes to himself.
But Madison goes through andexplains you know, this is going
to discredit self-government.
(08:18):
If laws are just being changedtoo fast, they're not being
thought through.
This is going to in some senserationalize those who say
self-government doesn't work.
These people are too stupid togovern themselves.
Madison wants to say no, weactually can make
self-government work, republicanself-government work, but that
means creating structures thatsort of slow things down to make
(08:40):
sure there's properdeliberation, to make sure that
the different branches are builtcorrectly to do the different
things that they're supposed todo.
But the legislature should bedeliberative and slow and
cautious and an executive shouldbe efficient in executing the
laws, whereas in Pennsylvaniathey didn't really have much of
a difference there.
So Madison very much, I thinkwants to, with the US
(09:03):
Constitution, say we really wantto make self-government work.
That's the thing that we saw inthe Declaration of Independence
and similarly, again, theDeclaration of Independence on
its own terms says we want to bedeliberative and cautious about
this.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
It's already in there .
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It's not just simply like the British government made
us mad, we're going to throw atantrum and leave immediately,
which you basically can do withthe Pennsylvania Constitution
originally, Not secede in thesense that the people they're
mad about something and theyimmediately get it.
So I think that the USConstitution very much is a sort
of faithful translation of theDeclaration of Independence,
(09:41):
both directly and again kind ofmediated through the state
constitutions that themselvesdraw on a lot of the principles
of the US Constitution.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
You talk about a lot of the constitutions for the
states that were you know theywere already colonies.
Is there influence later on,like as states are coming in?
So perhaps the great state ofarizona, the 48th state?
Do we see the declaration inlater state constitutions?
Speaker 2 (10:18):
yeah.
So one of the things that, uh,I would say in a more mediated
way.
So one of the things that againI alluded to, the fact there
ends up being sort of two basicmodels at the founding one or
the other.
So, for example, thePennsylvania Constitution is
(10:50):
floating around when theConstitution, when the
Continental Congress, is meetingand delegates from Georgia pick
that up.
Later, vermont, which is sortof its own quasi-independent
thing at this point, they pickit up as well.
So the Pennsylvania model getscopied in those Massachusetts
gets copied by others.
So the New HampshireConstitution of 1784 picks up a
(11:11):
lot of Massachusetts.
But then a few years later,after the US Constitution
largely tracks Massachusetts,pennsylvania itself rewrites its
constitution to follow theMassachusetts model, to follow
the Massachusetts model, and soas subsequent US or state
constitutions come online, theyvery heavily borrow from what
(11:35):
other state constitutions do,and there's actually kind of fun
ways where you can track thisthrough.
So there's a line that doesn'tcome from the Declaration of
Independence per se, but in theArizona Constitution, one of its
earlier sections, arguingfrequent recurrence to
fundamental principles is sortof necessary to a free
government.
That's a line that comes fromthe Washington State
(11:56):
Constitution, which in turncomes from a long list of
intermediate state constitutionswhich comes from the Virginia
Declaration of Rights, which isan inspiration written by George
Mason, which is an inspirationto the Declaration of
Independence right.
So you do see these interestingsort of through lines through
(12:17):
that.
But many of the stateconstitutions do borrow from
each other as sort of this againwith distinctive local
varieties, based as what wewould see in our sort of system
of decentralized federalism.
So they tweak things, but theyoften will borrow from
particularly their neighborswhich have similar problems or
(12:38):
other areas that might have sortof similar climates or
political cultures or somethinglike that.
So I mean, one of the thingsthat I think we often do lose
sight of is that the USConstitution is not the only
part of the Americanconstitutional tradition, that
really they are complementary,that the state constitution is
supposed to do some things andthe US Constitution is supposed
(13:00):
to do others.
And so you do see, stateconstitutions do include a lot
of the more sort of theoreticalkinds of language, like the
Lockean sort of social contractstuff, that the US Constitution
skips pretty much all of that.
It pretty much just is here'swhat the structure is, here's
what the rights are, becausestate constitutions are supposed
(13:26):
to be sort of the primarygoverning document of what most
of the time politics and societyare kind of doing.
They have law.
Particularly the early oneshave long political theory
discussions.
So you do see, in Arizona's is alittle thinner than others, one
or two or three sections thatare sort of theory and it jumps
to the rights, but others havesort of long discussions that
look like the kind of lead-in ofthe Declaration of Independence
(13:49):
, like what's the purpose ofgovernment, what's the purpose
of rights, what are theysupposed to do?
So you see that inspiration inthinking through what are the
basic political values of oursociety, which you see sort of
in the Declaration ofIndependence.
That will translate through thestate constitutions but not in
the US Constitution, not becauseit's a betrayal but because
it's doing something different.
(14:10):
The US Constitution is supposedto implement a few specific
foreign policy, interstatecommerce kinds of things, but
it's not supposed to be sort ofa be-all and end-all of
political society in the waythat they think the state
governments will be much moreinfluential.
So again, you sort of see theDeclaration of Independence
(14:31):
translated some of its partsinto the US Constitution and
some of its parts into the stateconstitutional tradition.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I would actually be a really fun lesson for teachers
to do is take their stateconstitution and do like a
genealogy almost, Because if wetook Arizona, what I'm hearing
is like the seventh greatgrandfather of the Arizona
constitution is the VirginiaDeclaration of Rights.
Because we can kind of tracethat.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Which you can go back one more step.
George Mason takes the phrase.
He doesn't cite him by name.
I can't remember the phrase.
It was like the celebratedFlorentine or whatever it is,
but he actually says it's fromMachiavelli.
Like the celebrated Florentineor whatever it is, but he
actually says it's fromMachiavelli.
So my political theory, nerdcolleagues.
So Mason thinks Machiavelli isthe best political philosopher
(15:14):
ever, which is something of aspicy take, Not Montesquieu.
Everybody else likes Montesquieu, but Mason's really into
Machiavelli, but he takes thatphrase from Machiavelli, I think
, in the discourses on Livy, asI recall, so you can even take
that one farther back.
So that's one of my favoriteexamples of this.
Is like, literally, you know,political theory, western save
ideas that the founders hadimbibed to Mason through, as you
(15:36):
said, like seven generations ofstate constitutions to Arizona,
which is the last of thecontiguous state constitutions
which, again, in some sense thisis a conversation.
It's not just the USConstitution by itself, but it
really is a conversation of abroader political set of
(15:57):
traditions.
My name is Tenley, from Iowa and I am in fourth
grade.
My question is how did theDeclaration of Independence
influence the US Constitution?
So on a last episode and I willlink it in our show notes, we
kind of alluded to how theDeclaration influenced the US
(00:20):
Constitution and we have DrWeinberg back to kind of talk
about this, because they are twodifferent documents.
One is a again declaration thatwe're separating from Britain,
but then the US Constitution isour framework for government.
So, dr Beinberg, how did theDeclaration of Independence
influence our US Constitution?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Right.
So there's a way to think of itas having a direct influence
and a way to think of it ashaving an indirect influence.
So the direct influence is thatthe Declaration of Independence
describes basically in itsopening sections, sort of what a
proper kind of government istrying to achieve, and later on,
(01:12):
in the longer part, as wetalked about before, it's a long
list of discussions of how theBritish government, from the
perspective of the colonists, isno longer achieving those ends
Particular objections, and we'lltalk about those in a second.
So that's the sort of directconnection is here's what we
think a government should looklike, here's what we think the
British government is failing todo, and so therefore, when
they're writing the?
U, the US Constitution, theyhave both of these in mind.
So in some ways you can thinkof, many of the structures of
(01:32):
the US Constitution are directlyinstalling corrections to what
the British government had beendoing during the revolution.
So, for example, as we talkedabout one of the themes, I would
argue this is something of acontroversial take, but I would
argue that the AmericanRevolution is fundamentally a
question of local government.
(01:54):
The first several objections ofthe Declaration of Independence,
and a few others sprinkledthroughout are basically
critiques of the Britishgovernment for making it
functionally difficult tostraight up, impossible for the
local colonial legislatures tomeet, act and govern, to govern
the people.
And so at its core the USConstitution is structurally one
(02:17):
about decentralized power, andwe'll talk more about how that
connects to the Articles ofConfederation.
They certainly recognize theytilted far too.
They tilted too heavily towardlocal government with the
Articles.
But the Constitution, whenthey're fixing that, doesn't
just simply say and thereforewe're overturning that
altogether.
They say here's basically acouple other checks we have to
put on the states, here's acouple other powers we need the
(02:38):
feds to have.
But it still fundamentallymaintains that idea of local
government from the Declarationof Independence.
So we see that, as we talkedabout a little bit before, the
Americans had understood Britishliberty to require effectively
independent judges, which wassomething that existed in
England but that had been sortof lost in translation to the
(03:01):
colonies.
So Article 3 creates protocolsfor independent judges holding
terms during good behavior.
That's a phrase that literallycomes from British law the Act
of Settlement of 1701, if Irecall correctly where that gets
implemented.
But the Declaration ofIndependence protests that that
isn't being implemented in thecolonies.
(03:21):
So the US Constitutionimplements that.
So there's a critique as well inthe Declaration of Independence
.
The phrase is really fun, butit's effectively a critique of
overbearing bureaucracy.
He meaning King George,although in many ways this is
Parliament has erected amultitude of new offices and
sent hither swarms of officersto harass our people and eat out
(03:43):
their substance.
There's this sort offree-ranging bureaucracy that
seemingly is hassling us, and sothe constitution sort of
creates restrictions on thosekinds of things.
So those are in some ways.
And then obviously many of thesections of the Bill of Rights,
the civil liberties guarantees,our responses to objections in
(04:04):
the Declaration of Independence,ordering large bodies of armed
troops among us.
That translates pretty clearlyto a third amendment, not using
appropriate trial by jury, andso on and so forth, fifth, sixth
amendments.
So we see lots of structuresand civil liberties carried over
in that sense.
But another way that I think theDeclaration of Independence
(04:25):
influences the US Constitutionis that the Declaration of
Independence is often there issort of an inspiration to the
state constitutions.
In some of the cases the stateconstitutions actually parts of
them, precede the Declaration ofIndependence, because the
Continental Congress, as theywere again, they didn't just
(04:47):
come up with this and say well,we're mad today, so we're
declaring independence.
They've been kicking aroundthese debates for years, and so
they had said to the coloniesyou know, let's get ready for
independence, which means youcolonial governments are now
going to be basically stategovernments.
So start thinking through whatyour state constitutions are
going to look like before wepull the trigger and actually
(05:08):
declare independence.
And so the Declaration ofIndependence, a lot of the
language, a lot of the logic,gets translated first into those
state constitutions.
Because, again, most government,their understanding, is going
to happen at the colonial or, inturn, state level.
And so that's where you need tobuild your judges, you need to
(05:30):
build your civil libertiesguarantees, and so lots of those
things in the Declaration ofIndependence translate initially
to the state constitutions.
And, and when you know about 10years later, they're drafting
the US Constitution, thefounders of the Constitutional
Convention is able to lookaround and say, ok, what are the
(05:50):
constitutions that arehappening in the United States?
Which are the ones that wethink are working really well
and which are the ones that wethink are working not so well?
And even within those, what arethe parts of them that are
working well?
And so as I tell my students.
In some ways the USConstitutional Convention, or
particularly Madison'scommentaries on it in the
(06:10):
Federalist Papers, as I say, arealmost subtweets of the
Pennsylvania Constitution.
These are the places they wentwrong.
Conversely, it largely picks upmuch of the Massachusetts
Constitution right.
Those end up being sort of thetwo predominant models in the
sort of period between theDeclaration of Independence and
the Constitution thePennsylvania model and the
(06:32):
Massachusetts model.
But in some sense both of themare attempts to translate the
Declaration of Independence intogovernance.
The Pennsylvania Constitutionreally, really, really
emphasizes the idea of democracy, or I should say and I choose
that word carefully because itis very, very, very responsive
(06:55):
Whereas the MassachusettsConstitution very much takes the
idea of the people aresovereign, but you need
structures instead of justgiving the people what they want
immediately.
So we need to guarantee there'sstronger protection of judicial
independence in Massachusettsthan there is in Pennsylvania
Again.
So that's one where you can seethe Declaration of Independence
have a way through.
(07:15):
So the US Constitution verymuch is.
Again, I will confess I'msomewhat impatient with the
scholars who say it's arepudiation.
The Declaration of Independencewas creating this wonderful
vision of self-government by thepeople, and then evil.
James Madison swooped in tocreate this sort of elite cabal
that locks them out.
(07:36):
And so they argue effectivelythat the Pennsylvania model was
the model that should havecontinued, which is hyper-direct
democracy with very weakstructural checks.
And I and Madison and otherswant to say, yes, we do care
about government by the people,but it needs to be a sustainable
government and not justanything that a majority
(07:57):
immediately howls for.
They get it five seconds laterand then five seconds after that
they change their mind, whichis why Madison's vices the
constitutional system of theUnited States.
It's a really famous doc.
It's originally basically aninternal memo.
He sort of writes to himself.
But Madison goes through andexplains you know, this is going
to discredit self-government.
(08:18):
If laws are just being changedtoo fast, they're not being
thought through.
This is going to in some senserationalize those who say
self-government doesn't work.
These people are too stupid togovern themselves.
Madison wants to say no, weactually can make
self-government work, republicanself-government work, but that
means creating structures thatsort of slow things down to make
(08:40):
sure there's properdeliberation, to make sure that
the different branches are builtcorrectly to do the different
things that they're supposed todo.
But the legislature should bedeliberative and slow and
cautious and an executive shouldbe efficient in executing the
laws, whereas in Pennsylvaniathey didn't really have much of
a difference there.
So Madison very much, I thinkwants to, with the US
(09:03):
Constitution, say we really wantto make self-government work.
That's the thing that we saw inthe Declaration of Independence
and similarly, again, theDeclaration of Independence on
its own terms says we want to bedeliberative and cautious about
this.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
It's already in there .
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It's not just simply like the British government made
us mad, we're going to throw atantrum and leave immediately,
which you basically can do withthe Pennsylvania Constitution
originally, Not secede in thesense that the people they're
mad about something and theyimmediately get it.
So I think that the USConstitution very much is a sort
of faithful translation of theDeclaration of Independence,
(09:41):
both directly and again kind ofmediated through the state
constitutions that themselvesdraw on a lot of the principles
of the US Constitution.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
You talk about a lot of the constitutions for the
states that were you know theywere already colonies.
Is there influence later on,like as states are coming in?
So perhaps the great state ofarizona, the 48th state?
Do we see the declaration inlater state constitutions?
Speaker 2 (10:18):
yeah.
So one of the things that, uh,I would say in a more mediated
way.
So one of the things that againI alluded to, the fact there
ends up being sort of two basicmodels at the founding one or
the other.
So, for example, thePennsylvania Constitution is
(10:50):
floating around when theConstitution, when the
Continental Congress, is meetingand delegates from Georgia pick
that up.
Later, vermont, which is sortof its own quasi-independent
thing at this point, they pickit up as well.
So the Pennsylvania model getscopied in those Massachusetts
gets copied by others.
So the New HampshireConstitution of 1784 picks up a
(11:11):
lot of Massachusetts.
But then a few years later,after the US Constitution
largely tracks Massachusetts,pennsylvania itself rewrites its
constitution to follow theMassachusetts model, to follow
the Massachusetts model, and soas subsequent US or state
constitutions come online, theyvery heavily borrow from what
(11:35):
other state constitutions do,and there's actually kind of fun
ways where you can track thisthrough.
So there's a line that doesn'tcome from the Declaration of
Independence per se, but in theArizona Constitution, one of its
earlier sections, arguingfrequent recurrence to
fundamental principles is sortof necessary to a free
government.
That's a line that comes fromthe Washington State
(11:56):
Constitution, which in turncomes from a long list of
intermediate state constitutionswhich comes from the Virginia
Declaration of Rights, which isan inspiration written by George
Mason, which is an inspirationto the Declaration of
Independence right.
So you do see these interestingsort of through lines through
(12:17):
that.
But many of the stateconstitutions do borrow from
each other as sort of this againwith distinctive local
varieties, based as what wewould see in our sort of system
of decentralized federalism.
So they tweak things, but theyoften will borrow from
particularly their neighborswhich have similar problems or
(12:38):
other areas that might have sortof similar climates or
political cultures or somethinglike that.
So I mean, one of the thingsthat I think we often do lose
sight of is that the USConstitution is not the only
part of the Americanconstitutional tradition, that
really they are complementary,that the state constitution is
supposed to do some things andthe US Constitution is supposed
(13:00):
to do others.
And so you do see, stateconstitutions do include a lot
of the more sort of theoreticalkinds of language, like the
Lockean sort of social contractstuff, that the US Constitution
skips pretty much all of that.
It pretty much just is here'swhat the structure is, here's
what the rights are, becausestate constitutions are supposed
(13:26):
to be sort of the primarygoverning document of what most
of the time politics and societyare kind of doing.
They have law.
Particularly the early oneshave long political theory
discussions.
So you do see, in Arizona's is alittle thinner than others, one
or two or three sections thatare sort of theory and it jumps
to the rights, but others havesort of long discussions that
look like the kind of lead-in ofthe Declaration of Independence
(13:49):
, like what's the purpose ofgovernment, what's the purpose
of rights, what are theysupposed to do?
So you see that inspiration inthinking through what are the
basic political values of oursociety, which you see sort of
in the Declaration ofIndependence.
That will translate through thestate constitutions but not in
the US Constitution, not becauseit's a betrayal but because
it's doing something different.
(14:10):
The US Constitution is supposedto implement a few specific
foreign policy, interstatecommerce kinds of things, but
it's not supposed to be sort ofa be-all and end-all of
political society in the waythat they think the state
governments will be much moreinfluential.
So again, you sort of see theDeclaration of Independence
(14:31):
translated some of its partsinto the US Constitution and
some of its parts into the stateconstitutional tradition.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I would actually be a really fun lesson for teachers
to do is take their stateconstitution and do like a
genealogy almost, Because if wetook Arizona, what I'm hearing
is like the seventh greatgrandfather of the Arizona
constitution is the VirginiaDeclaration of Rights.
Because we can kind of tracethat.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Which you can go back one more step.
George Mason takes the phrase.
He doesn't cite him by name.
I can't remember the phrase.
It was like the celebratedFlorentine or whatever it is,
but he actually says it's fromMachiavelli.
Like the celebrated Florentineor whatever it is, but he
actually says it's fromMachiavelli.
So my political theory, nerdcolleagues.
So Mason thinks Machiavelli isthe best political philosopher
(15:14):
ever, which is something of aspicy take, Not Montesquieu.
Everybody else likes Montesquieu, but Mason's really into
Machiavelli, but he takes thatphrase from Machiavelli, I think
, in the discourses on Livy, asI recall, so you can even take
that one farther back.
So that's one of my favoriteexamples of this.
Is like, literally, you know,political theory, western save
ideas that the founders hadimbibed to Mason through, as you
(15:36):
said, like seven generations ofstate constitutions to Arizona,
which is the last of thecontiguous state constitutions
which, again, in some sense thisis a conversation.
It's not just the USConstitution by itself, but it
really is a conversation of abroader political set of
(15:57):
traditions.
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