Course Information
U.S. Constitution Course:
The next 12-week course begins on Thursday August 22nd, 2013. Classes start promptly at 7:00 PM and will be held every Thursday evening (except for Holidays) at the same time for the 12-week duration.
Classes are located at Old Paths Church, 125 Oak Avenue N Suite 200, Annandale, MN 55302. The cost, which includes your course notebook and graduation certificate, is $150.00 for one person; $30.00 for each additional family member. The instructor is Jake McMillian MacAulay, of the Sons of Liberty radio broadcast.
The next graduation will be on Thursday, November 7th, at 7pm. We are excited to have guest speaker and founder of The Institute on the Constitution, Michael Anthony Peroutka!
Our Mission
Our desire is to help individuals across America to understand their own history, and to learn and fully appreciate their own heritage by reacquainting them with the worldview and vision of our Founding Fathers.
We believe that by understanding the way in which the framers of our Constitutional Republic viewed their relationship to God, to other nations, among the various states and to each other, we can gain valuable insight into the foundational principles of America and the difficulties that face us at this time and the times to come.
We hope to encourage individuals, families, churches, legislatures, civic and other organizations to become conversant with the foundational principles on which American civil government and proper jurisprudence rest. We believe that, so informed and educated, the American people will be empowered to take an active and meaningful role in the biblical jurisdictions of family, church and civil government.
Our Background
Institute on the Constitution began as an effort of two attorneys, one minister, one loyal wife, three hardworking children and as a recognition that our American culture is woefully ignorant of its own history.
Alexis de Toqueville, who toured this country during the 1820 - 30's, and who wrote extensively of his experiences as an observer of American culture, after noting American ignorance about European affairs, wrote the following...
"But if you question [the average American] respecting his own country, the cloud that dimmed his intelligence will immediately disperse; his language will become clear and precise as his thoughts. He will inform you what his rights are and by what means he exercises them; he will be able to point out customs, which obtain the political world. You will find that he is well acquainted with the rules of the administration, and that he is familiar with the mechanism of the laws. The citizen of the United States does not acquire his practical science and his positive notions from books; the instructions he has acquired may have prepared him for receiving those ideas, but it did not furnish them. The American learns to know the laws by participating in the act of legislation; and he takes a lesson in the forms of government from governing. The great work of society is ever going on before his eyes and, as it were, under his hands."
Clearly, major changes have occurred in America since the time of Toqueville’s observations and we suffer the results of our current ignorance of our history by living in a culture that gradually acquiesces to increasing infringements on rights and liberties that our Founding Fathers considered God-given and unalienable. Indeed, there are many who make the case that we are living in slavery in America at this time.
What to do? Well, why not begin at the beginning and take the positive steps that will lead to real, tangible, palpable results.
Let us, first of all, thank God for the freedoms that He has allowed us to retain and let us begin to recover the lost tools of self-government by learning about our place in His history. Let us learn the history of our own country, and the plan that our Founding Fathers fashioned for its preservation. The purpose of that plan was set forth in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the structure of that plan took the form of an agreement between the sovereign states known as the United States Constitution.
We need to study these profound documents and the historical context in which they were written and adopted. We need, furthermore, to understand the religious and philosophical worldview of the drafters of the Constitution and the clear intent of the States in ratifying a document that set forth the limited nature of the powers being vested in the federal government. We need to understand the Founders intent in adopting a Bill of Rights that acted as a check on the power of Congress and the executive authority from infringing the rights of people from whom their authority was derived.
Regrettably, but perhaps not surprisingly, the government schools have gradually lessened their emphasis on the teaching of American history and government. There seems to be a systematic and organized attempt to disconnect the youth of America from their heritage so that, at the present, although but a few generations from our Founders, school children today have very little concept of the basic principles that their Fathers fought and died to defend.
It is our hope that through the use of this lecture series along with the study notes and other materials, working in small, community groups and connected through the marvelous technology of the internet, participants in the Institute on the Constitution series can begin and continue the challenging but rewarding and Godly task of restoring our lost freedoms and passing on our Constitutional heritage of freedom to future generations of free Americans.
Our Format
Institute on the Constitution is a course of study consisting of twelve sessions with one session conducted every week. The sessions are typically an hour and a half in length and begin with a welcome and introduction to the lesson of the day. The introduction is followed by the lecture presentation of your instructor. Following the lecture is a review and group discussion of the questions at the end of each segment. We have also found it appropriate here to insert a brief segment on "current events". It is appropriate that we discuss these in light of our growing understanding of constitutional principles and historical precedents.
After each lesson, we have included a brief test with the suggestion that the participants take the test prior to the next lesson. This provides reinforcement of the material and can be helpful in clarifying the information presented. Tests will be corrected at the beginning of the next lesson.
Below is a brief summary of what to expect in each of the 12 week lessons.
Week One A BIBLICAL VIEW OF HISTORY, LAW AND GOVERNMENT.
Week Two THE DISCOVERY, SETTLEMENT AND EVANGELIZATION OF AMERICA.
How Tyranny Came to America - Joseph Sobran
Week Three THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS.
The Keys to Good Government (Part 1) - David Barton
Week Four THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORLDVIEW OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS.
The Keys to Good Government (Part 2) - David Barton
Week Five 1776-1789: FROM INDEPENDENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION.
The Keys to Good Government (Part 3) - David Barton
Week Six THE CONSTITUTION: PREAMBLE & ARTICLE I.
The Keys to Good Government (Part 4) - David Barton
Week Seven THE CONSTITUTION: ARTICLES II & III.
Week Eight THE CONSTITUTION: ARTICLES IV, V, VI & VII.
Week Nine THE BILL OF RIGHTS: THE FIRST AMENDMENT.
The Foundations of American Government - David Barton
Week Ten THE CONSTITUTION: AMENDMENTS TWO - TWENTY-SEVEN.
Week Eleven THE CRISIS OF THE CONSTITUTION: FROM BIBLICAL ABSOLUTES TO EVOLUTIONARY HUMANISM.
Week Twelve GRADUATION! RECLAIMING THE CONSTITUTION: A VICTORY PLAN FOR RESTORING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL HERITAGE.
Each lecture notebook includes the following Founding Documents - Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Amendments and Northwest Ordinance - as well as the short publication - The Law - by Frederic Bastiat
