If the Federalist Papers are ignored or given inadequate attention in today's colleges, the Anti-Federalist Papers are consigned to the memory hole as a challenge to prevailing liberal thought.
Peter Berkowitz has created some stir with his Wall Street Journal column, "Why Colleges Don't Teach The Federalist Papers." Many blogs have printed this excerpt:
It would be difficult to overstate the significance of The Federalist for understanding the principles of American government and the challenges that liberal democracies confront early in the second decade of the 21st century. Yet despite the lip service they pay to liberal education, our leading universities can't be bothered to require students to study The Federalist—or, worse, they oppose such requirements on moral, political or pedagogical grounds. Small wonder it took so long for progressives to realize that arguments about the constitutionality of ObamaCare are indeed serious.
For the full answer, if Berkowitz offers one, you'd have to be a paid subscriber to the Wall Street Journal. A lawyer before becoming a columnist, Jennifer Rubin offers explanations, "The first has to do with the transformation of law schools from intellectual institutions to professional trade schools. Especially with the astronomically high tuition at most law schools, the emphasis, by necessity, is on preparing students for the practice of the law....Second, law schools have given way to the notion that the Constitution is whatever the Supreme Court says it is." She concludes:
The reason in large part is the defect in legal and collegiate education, and the mindset behind the indifference to seminal documents that reveal the ingenious and enduring structure of our Constitution.
A few weeks ago, I helped with a discussion of the Bill Of Rights for my son's Boy Scout advancement requirement. The teacher wasn't aware until I commented that the Bill Of Rights exists because of the Anti-Federalist criticisms of the draft Constitution not doing enough to restrict federal power or ensure state and individual rights. Then, as we briefly reviewed the first ten Amendments neither of us could remember what the 9th Amendment is.
I'm not a lawyer, nor a President who claims he is a constitutional law scholar who ignores it at will. But, I have read both the Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers. The Anti-Federalist Papers can easily be accessed at this link. Many of the arguments raised have immediate relevance to today's issues of federal powers and limitations. Without being properly briefed in such arguments, a lawyer's imagination and scholarship to prepare a brief is limited.
Returning to the 9th Amendment, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," relatively little has been written about it and it has seldom been cited by the Supreme Court. That is beginning to change, as some scholars are trying to catch up, and as the federal government claims more and more powers that intrude into individual lives. Liberal Political Science professor Steven Taylor argues that the Federalist Papers by themself are not a bible to be strictly adhered to as "the guide" to today's arguments over the Constitution. But, he does admit that certain portions become more relevant as issues arise. So it is with the 9th Amendment.
I've been reading up on the 9th Amendment, and it has also led me into the definition of natural rights. In other words, I'm drawn back into discussions and arguments that date back to the Hebrew Bible. I expect to return to this subject once I've settled my own thoughts.
In the meantime, let's just start by being informed of how both the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers distilled these subjects in launching us to where we are today. Is it too much to ask that you choose a lawyer or politician who has also?
