|
 James Madison Symposium Monday, July 8
Foundation
Board Member
Catherine Allgor
speaks about
Ghosts in the Machinery: Women and the United States Constitution
Click here
for more details
| |
|
 | |
Support the
Education Fund | |
Click here to support your fellow Fellows. |
|
Share With Your Friends
|
|
|
|
|
|
From the President, Lewis Larsen
It has been a busy spring here in Alexandria. I am happy to announce the selection of the 56 James Madison Fellows for 2013. 38% of the winners heard about the program from a Fellow, and I thank you for your continued support of these applicants.
The 2014 application season has just begun. We revised the application to make it more "user friendly" and we've also made a significant change in the eligibility requirements: Applicants are no longer required to wait three years between receiving a previous graduate degree and matriculating into a proposed master's degree under a James Madison Fellowship. Please help us to get the word out.
We continue to receive contributions to the 2013 campaign, Summer in the City: Celebrating Twenty Years of Summer Institutes. 13% of all Fellows have already made a contribution, and I hope that others will soon participate. Our 2013 Fellows' Fellow, Victoria Pang of Ohio, is counting on your support.
Madison Fellows were well represented at the Annual Conference of the National Council for History Education, held in Richmond, VA in March. Four Fellows presented sessions, and ten Fellows submitted lessons on the Federalist Papers which were distributed to over 50 attendees. Later this summer, all of those lessons will appear on the Foundation website.
The response to our state council initiative, E Pluribus Unum, has been wonderful! Fellows in twenty states have already indicated an interest in getting this project off the ground. Click here to see if your state is represented and, if not, let Claire know that you would like to help out. She also welcomes any suggestions about potential activities for the state councils.
Finally, since summer is a time to catch up on your reading, I recommend that you take a look at newly published works by Dr. Erik Chaput, '03 (RI) and Tim Moore, '99 (WI). We have a special shelf in our new Library for works (books, articles, dissertations) by Fellows-please send us copies!
|
Focus on the Fellows 
Mark Rogers '95 (VA)
The 1995 James Madison Summer Institute coincided with the completion of my first year teaching International Baccalaureate History of the Americas. After another five years of teaching IB History, I became a Teacher Training Workshop Leader for IB (while still teaching history and becoming the IB Diploma Program Coordinator at J.E. B. Stuart High School). Leading workshops in both History and Vertical Mapping of History and Humanities several times a year has enabled me to travel from Calgary, Canada to Bogota, Columbia, to Istanbul Turkey, as well as Rice University, United Nations International School, and numerous cities in the United States. I have worked with new teachers, heads of schools and most everyone else in between. And all of this while adding AP Government and Theory of Knowledge to my teaching workload.
Several years ago, Oxford University Press asked me to work on a book (with several coauthors): History of the Americas Course Companion. Working with a British publisher while writing in Alexandria, Virginia was a new and challenging experience. After nine months of submissions and rewrites (which benefitted greatly from the practices learned in my History MA from American University), my work was completed, and the book came out in April, 2011.
It is hard to beat the experience of walking into a classroom in another school and seeing students using a book written by oneself. But, best of all, after 29 years in the classroom, I'm still enthusiastic about teaching. Much of that sustained enthusiasm is due to the Madison Fellowship, which brought me a renewed appreciation for and a deeper understanding of the study of history.
Let us hear what you have been up to since receiving your Fellowship. Submit a brief article (150-200 words) along with a high-resolution photo to cgriffin@jamesmadison.com for possible inclusion in future newsletters.
|
 Constitution Corner
Dr. Stuart Leibiger, LaSalle University
The Three-Fifths Compromise: A Steal for the South
At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, James Wilson of Pennsylvania and John Rutledge of South Carolina cut a deal. Wilson traded the Three-Fifths Compromise to Rutledge in return for basing representation in Congress on state population. This dirty deal was of course a steal for the white South, but few people today realize just how much of a steal it was.
Roughly how many seats in Congress did the South get for its disfranchised slave population? There were about 650,000 slaves in the South in the 1790s, and the original Constitution awarded one seat in Congress for every 30,000 people. If you multiply 650,000 by 3/5 and then divide by 30,000, you get 13 seats in Congress. Thus the South received approximately 13 Congressional seats out of a total of 106 during the 1790s, giving it disproportionately large influence in that body. As Garry Wills's provocative book Negro President points out, none of the major pro-South pieces of legislation before the Civil War, including the Missouri Compromise, the Gag Rule, the Annexation of Texas, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Fugitive Slave Law, would have passed without the Three-Fifths Compromise. Imagine a fictitious Southern plantation with 50,000 slaves. The owner of that imaginary plantation could march off to take his seat in Congress without having to win an election, because his plantation would constitute an entire Congressional district!
Because the number of Presidential electoral votes is based on the total membership of both houses of Congress, the Three-Fifths Compromise also helped Southerners to win eight of the first nine Presidential elections. Take the election of 1800, in which Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams by eight electoral votes, as a glaring example. Without the Three-Fifths Compromise, Adams would have defeated Jefferson by five electoral votes. And of course Southern Presidents appointed pro-slavery Justices to the Supreme Court, ultimately resulting in pro-slavery rulings, such as the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision. The bottom line is that the North paid a high price to keep the Deep South in the Union, because the Three-Fifths Compromise gave pro-slavery forces undue weight in all three branches of the federal government.
|
Teaching Tips 
Kari Ramsey, '12 (FL)
With classrooms full of digital natives, bringing history to life for students now includes the employment of exciting electronic tools that all students can access via touch screen. Historical tours through Google Earth can allow your students to explore the battlefields of the American Revolution with the click of button or slide of the finger. As students forge new spatial connections with the content, they will also have the opportunity to view digital documents associated with each historical site. The yellow push pin for Lexington and Concord reveals more than just location; it also tacks on information about minutemen and a Massachusetts broadside urging support of the "Grand American Cause". Students can also interact with the map by adding their own information and identifying other key events, which could be used as a new way to introduce local history into your classroom. W.W. Norton has developed 14 interactive tours for your satisfaction, with topics ranging from Manifest Destiny to modern conflicts. Happy exploring!
Do you have a favorite pedagogical approach for teaching about the Constitution? Submit a brief article (150-200 words) to cgriffin@jamesmadison.com for possible inclusion in future newsletters.
|
|
Opportunities
Let us know about professional opportunities that would be of interest to Fellows. We plan to include 3-4 timely notifications in each edition of the newsletter. Information can be sent to cgriffin@jamesmadison.com
|
|
|
From the Foundation
Official Annual Reports are due on July 15 for all Fellows currently working on their degree and/or fulfilling their teaching obligations, and should be mailed to Anne Marie at the Foundation offices. If you are graduating this year (or graduated last December), you also need to submit a certified transcript showing the awarding of your degree.
The Foundation would also appreciate receiving informal reports from all completed Fellows, telling us about your professional endeavors. Please send these informal updates to cgriffin@jamesmadison.com
If you have some spare time in the next month, we highly recommend viewing the new PBS series on the Constitution: We the People.
© 2013 by James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation. All rights reserved.
|
|
|
