Okay, so I don't watch Maury, but from what I hear about it, every other episode is figuring out which of the two dead-beats is the father. And it always turns out that it's the one that the mother doesn't want involved in the kid's life.
So, I am exaggerating one of the minor points of today's topic, in our morning lecture, our discussion session, and then at the afternoon James Madison Symposium. We talked about the Bill of Rights and Madison's motivation for writing them, especially after he opposed the idea. While his political reasoning and what we should do with the knowledge and evidence can be debated (and it was debated vigorously), what stood out goes back to my original reference. Can we truly call James Madison the "father" of the Bill of Rights?
Dr. Dreisbach told us that one time he had family in town and he wound up serving as their tour guide. They went first to Montpelier, where a video proclaimed him as the father of the Bill of Rights, as he formulated the text that serves as the basis of them from 200 proposals from the states. The next day they went to Gunston Hall, home of George Mason. There a video proclaimed him as the father of the Bill of Rights, as he authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a document that influenced the US Bill of Rights. The following day, they went to Red Hill, the final home and current museum of Patrick Henry. The introductory video proclaimed him (you guessed it) the father of the Bill of Rights, because as the leading "Anti-Federalist" (if you want to know why I put the quotes there, ask me or another Fellow for a better explanation), he led the charge for a Bill of Rights and eventually one was created and ratified. So the question remains, who is the true father?
I think we are all in agreement that because Madison wrote the text after poring over the proposals, the Bill of Rights has more of his historical DNA than others, but it raised a counterfactual - if Madison did not decide to write the document, would it have been written, and if so, by whom? How much different would this document, one that it was argued was hastily written due to other pressing needs in 1789, and has become the most recognizable (dare I say, to use Dr. Dreisbach's word, mythological) part of the Constitution, be under different circumstances. Few historians like to play the what-if game, but we pondered over this question to try to understand what the Federalists and Anti-Federalists would have done in such a circumstance.
The biggest struggle I walked away with today came not on the material itself. I am torn over what to do with this information that I have absorbed not only today, but this whole Institute. The historian in me feels guilty for glossing over it when I go back to my high school to teach, but the realist in me knows that I can't spend a long time on it either. I posed that question to Tiffany Rhodes, the 2010 Fellow from NC. She said that the best she has found is to be more thoughtful in our approach to the material and present the information through debates or activities to allow the students to experience and learn the other point of views that our curriculum doesn't highlight. With that, I feel much better about how I will approach next year's planning guides (at least until I actually sit down to figure out what I can do).
MEET THE FELLOWS: Dennis Bullock is from Burbank, California, right outside of LA. He is gaining a reputation for his build, as he has won the unofficial award for biggest biceps. One of the coolest things about him though is that he served for a while as the Voice of the Trojans (USC), and if you do actually get to hear his announcer's voice, he is quite good.
TOMORROW: Tomorrow is supposed to be 105 degrees, before factoring in the heat index. I think the two plans for most of us is either the pool or staying inside and working on the paper. We can't wait for the mid-80s next week.
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