• Continental Congress - Constitution Day

Constitution Day

Sunday, September 17, 2023 is Constitution Day and Citizenship Day; an American federal observance recognizing the adoption of the United States Constitution and those who have become U.S. citizens by birth or naturalization.

Campus events to observe Constitutional Day:

  • On Monday, September 18, at noon in the Sentry Room, Professor Paul Schue will give a Brown Bag Presentation titled: “Fighting for the Constitution: Voting Rights and Three Models of Human Nature from 1787 to Now.” Feel free to bring your lunch; refreshments will be served.
  • On Monday, September 18, in HIS 325: Nature and Nation (1-2:20pm, Wheeler 211) Professor Erica Hannickel will give a lecture on the early national naturalist William Bartram, his connections to the Founding Fathers, and how some of his observations of the Creek and Cherokee people and their government styles in the Southeastern U.S. came to inform the framing of the U.S. Constitution. The campus community is invited and if you’re planning to attend, please email Erica by Sept. 15, to receive reading material so you may participate in the discussion.

For more information on the Constitutional documents, check out the following links.

On-Campus Activities will be added soon.

On-Campus Activities include:

  • Classroom discussions about the need for the 14th Amendment, given the Black Codes across many states in the wake of the Civil War.
  • Discussions on Congressional hearings and testimony during Reconstruction regarding widespread terrorism enacted by the KKK on African Americans. Central to those hearings were discussions of the limits of the 14th Amendment and whether the nation must suspend other rights to defend the rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
  • Readings and discussion of the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case, its relationship to the 14th Amendment, and how that case set up much in the way of federal policy on race relations for the next century.
  • A review and discussion of the Constitution and Federalist Paper #51. Class topics will include the assumptions underpinning the separation of powers, federal v. state responsibilities, and the legislative process