Institute on the Constitution
Educational Nonprofit
Institute on the Constitution is an educational effort originally out of Pasadena, Maryland, now based in Dover, Delaware.
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 Founders.
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 Challenge
Alexis de Tocqueville, 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 Tocqueville’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 Founders considered God-given and unalienable. Indeed, there are many who make the case that we are living in slavery in America at this time.
