Western professor to talk about the U.S. Constitution
Lecture to commemorate national Constitution Day
DANBURY, CONN. — No taxation without representation. A federal government with limited powers. Remember those words? They are part of the U.S. Constitution and on Constitution Day Western Connecticut State University Dr. Kevin Gutzman will discuss our country’s founding document, the way it was supposed to work and the way it works today.
Gutzman, who teaches history and non-Western culture, will begin his talk, “Out of the American Revolution, the U.S. Constitution,” at 1 p.m., Friday, Sept. 17, in Warner Hall on the university’s Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury. The talk is free of charge and the public is invited.
“Essentially, the idea of the Constitution was that most political decisions should be made by legislative elections through the state and give the federal government few powers, such as military and diplomacy,” Gutzman said. “The current behavior of the federal government assumes that it has unlimited authority. We have the opposite model from the one we adopted when the Constitution was written.”
Gutzman, who is frequently interviewed by national media, is the author of two books on the Constitution: “Who Killed the Constitution?” with Thomas E. Woods Jr. and the New York Times bestseller “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution.”
“The Constitution is used to justify what federal judges want to do if they want to void state laws, but when it comes to the intention of the Constitution to limit powers of Congress, they say it’s old-fashioned,” Gutzman said. “If you give a certain group of people authority and it’s limited only by the limits set by that group, then basically there aren’t any. That’s the U.S. Constitution. The federal government does whatever it wants and the federal judges uphold it.”
Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England’s best small private universities.