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Hillsdale Collegeis an independent institution of higher learning founded in 1844 by men and women “grateful to God for the inestimable blessings” resulting from civil and religious liberty and “believing that the diffusion of learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.” It pursues the stated object of the founders: “to furnish all persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, or sex, a literary, scientific, [and] theological education” outstanding among American colleges “and to combine with this such moral and social instruction as will best develop the minds and improve the hearts of its pupils.” As a nonsectarian Christian institution, Hillsdale College maintains “by precept and example” the immemorial teachings and practices of the Christian faith.
The College also considers itself a trustee of our Western philosophical and theological inheritance tracing to Athens and Jerusalem, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law.
By training the young in the liberal arts, Hillsdale College prepares students to become leaders worthy of that legacy. By encouraging the scholarship of its faculty, it contributes to the preservation of that legacy for future generations. By publicly defending that legacy, it enlists the aid of other friends of free civilization and thus secures the conditions of its own survival and independence.
I started this course to see how Hillsdale approached the subject. It didn’t take long to realize their agenda was merely to push a conservative view of the constitution.
One thing to realize they ,being of a conservative “bent” border on constitutional “literalism”. Meaning their view is that every word in the constitution should be taken at face value… period. But if one reads other constitutional texts, including the minutes take of the various debates the “architect” engaged I on specific subjects, you would know the constitution was in fact intended to be a “living” document. Meaning the Founders were not sufficiently naive to think they knew what the future would bring. A changing world requires changing ideas and values.
We have today a number of conservative judges who have been taught the constitution should never change in its approach to liberties, social and legal standards, etc. Some of whom sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. And I hasten to point out it has been those conservative literalists that has more recently set women’s rights back 50 years.
When the Second Constitutional Convention met to address individual rights, women were not permitted to vote or own property. I suspect were it up to Hillsdale and its compatriots to be the ultimate determinants of rights, America would find itself once again living in an 18th Century America.
When I realized Hillsdale’s approach to understanding the U.S. Constitution and their degree of presenting ALL of the constitutional history was purely subjective conservatism I quickly ended my participation in their propaganda campaign.