THE CONSTITUTION AT RISK? Founding Principles and Today’s Politics

17-20 November 2010

A Conference Hosted by the Tocqueville Project of Brigham Young University, with Funding from The John Adams Center for the Study of Faith, Philosophy and Public Affairs and The Sutherland Institute.

Is the Constitution as understood by the Founders at risk?   If so, then how so, and what caused this?  And would the passing of the Founders’ Constitution represent a grave threat (as Tea Partiers or Glenn Beck would have it) or rather a welcome moment in the progressive unfolding of basic principles of freedom and equality? Can our deepest constitutional concerns be addressed through ordinary political means, or are our problems fundamentally moral and spiritual?

Conference Director : Ralph C. Hancock, BYU Professor of Political Science and President of the John Adams Center.  Author of The Responsibility of Reason: Theory and Practice in a Liberal-Democratic Age.

Visiting Speakers:

Paul Rahe , Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in Western Heritage and Professor of History, Hillsdale College, Author of  Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift. “Montesquieu and the Foundations of American Constitutionalism,”

Charles R. Kesler , Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College, editor of the Federalist Papers and of the Claremont Review of Books: “Restoring Constitutionalism”

William Voegeli , Visiting scholar at Claremont McKenna College’s Henry Salvatori Center, contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books and the author of Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State : “Populism and Constitutionalism”

Peter Lawler , Dana Professor of Government at Berry College in Georgia, editor-in-chief of Perspectives on Political Science, and author of Modern and American Dignity : “Toward a Consistent Ethic of Judicial Review: Our Founding and Legislative Compromise.”

Rogers Smith , Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, author of “Oligarchies in America? Reflections on Tocqueville’s Fears”: “The Constitutional Philosophy of Barack Obama.”