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Dr. Steve Ealy discusses Constitution – 220 years after its signing

MOUNT VERNON—Dr. Steve Ealy (above), senior fellow at the Liberty Fund, Inc., opened the Albert Sidney Johnson Lecture Series for the 2007-2008 academic year at Brewton-Parker College with a lecture and discussion on the U.S. Constitution’s interpretation of self-government and the way we perceive our rights. Dr. Ealy used excerpts from the era’s political commentary, written – often anonymously – in newspapers at the time of the U.S. Constitution’s creation to examine how Americans define the Constitution and its governing of the long-controversial question of whether the “power of the people” lies in the states’ government or in the national government as it was defined by the original writers of the Constitution. The commentaries were combined and published as one anthology, The Federalist Papers. Dr. Ealy’s intriguing lecture celebrates the 220th anniversary of the Constitution’s signing on Sept. 17, 1887. According to Dr. Lee Cheek, chair of the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, the lecture “encouraged all citizens to consider the enormity of the political struggle that lead to the adoption of the U. S. Constitution.” Dr. Cheek also suggested that “Ealy's lecture reminded us that the ‘constitutional process’ was really two events—the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and the Ratification Debates of 1787-1789.” (Photo by Kelley M. Arnold)

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