Self-governing citizens in a free republic need to know the structure of their government and the content of its principal laws. For Americans, that requires a basic knowledge of the U.S. Constitution.
Ideally, we should acquire this information in school, so as adults we need only burnish it from time to time.
However, modern Americans seeking to learn about their Constitution face some obstacles. My Epoch Times columns—including this “Defending the Constitution” series—are designed to help readers overcome them.
The obstacles to learning about the Constitution are four:
First: Many schools no longer teach the Constitution accurately. When one of my daughters was in public high school, I read the relatively short segment of her social studies text devoted to the document. I found that segment to be loaded with errors. When I composed a letter to her teacher reporting on the mistakes, it consumed several single-spaced pages merely to recite them. …