"Taking the Constitution Seriously"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Walter Berns writes in "Taking the Constitution Seriously" that the philosophical fundamentals, which were infused into the Declaration of Independence, were directly responsible for the ultimate form the Constitution of the United States eventually took and for the moral perspective of the nation that was created. The author points out that Berns dispels the idea of many historians who doubt that the founding fathers of the United States seriously included the notion of self-evidentiary, unalienable rights as a launching pad for the nation but rather that the importance of these rights to the United States grew only over time. The paper relates that Berns discusses the elemental principles that backed the Declaration of Independence's position of natural and self evident human rights as argued by John Locke and Thomas Hobbes.

From the Paper:

"This broad perspective sets the stage for Berns' handling of the segments of society that were understood to be unworthy or unwilling to enter into the social contract of the United States. The Tories are the first subset of colonial society that Berns addresses. To him, they occupy a unique place in the discussion of constituting the people of the United States because they categorically opposed the premises of the United States upon philosophical or political grounds. He notes that many were loyalists to the crown simply for personal and economic reasons and others for religious reasons--like the Quakers but the most interesting, to Berns, are those who were dedicated monarchists. They first two subsets of Tories were somewhat assimilated into American society, but he implies that the exile of the third subset was essential to the continuity of the United States."

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