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What Does the Constitution Really Mean? Are liberals right when they cite the "elastic" clauses of the Constitution to justify big government? Or are conservatives right when they cite the Constitution's explicit limits on federal power? The answer lies in a more basic question: How did the founding generation intend for us to interpret and apply the Constitution? Professor Brion McClanahan, popular author of The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Founding Fathers, finds the answers by going directly to the source - to the Founding Fathers themselves, who debated all the relevant issues in their state constitutional conventions. In The Founding Fathers' Guide to the Constitution, you'll discover: How the Constitution was designed to protect rather than undermine the rights of States Why Congress, not the executive branch, was meant to be the dominant branch of government-and why the Founders would have argued for impeaching many modern presidents for violating the Constitution Why an expansive central government was the Founders' biggest fear, and how the Constitution-and the Bill of Rights- was designed to guard against it Why the founding generation would regard most of the current federal budget-including "stimulus packages"-as unconstitutional Why the Founding Fathers would oppose attempts to "reform" the Electoral College Why the Founding Fathers would be horrified at the enormous authority of the Supreme Court, and why the Founders intended Congress, not the Court, to interpret federal law Authoritative, fascinating, and timely, The Founding Fathers' Guide to the Constitution is the definitive layman's guide to America's most important-and often willfully misunderstood-historical document.

Making a Founding Father out of a French Jesuit -- Imagining Peaceful Conquest -- Making Parallel Histories out of Spanish Missions -- Embodying Hospitality and Paternalism -- Revising and Rejecting Anti-Friarism -- Envisioning Catholic Colonial Order -- Conclusion : Imperial Church Stories.

Introduction -- Aristotle and Locke in the American founding -- Equality, liberty, wisdom, morality, and consent in the idea of political freedom -- Humanizing certitudes and impoverishing doubts : a critique of The closing of the American mind by Allan Bloom -- "The Reichstag is still burning : the failure of higher education and the decline of the West" : a valedictory lecture -- The end of history means the end of freedom -- The American founding as the best regime : the bonding of civil and religious liberty -- The decline and fall of the American idea : reflections on the failure of American conservatism -- Thomas Aquinas meets Thomas Jefferson -- Dred Scott revisited -- Legend of Sleepy Hollow

The Founding Fathers have enjoyed a revival of interest in recent years, due in part to the publication of a number of splendid biographies of various founders. After providing a survey of the primary religious groups in late colonial America, Holmes turns his attention to the religious views of several of the most prominent members of the founding generation, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.