Center for the Constitution
The Center's programs take place in William and Peyton Lewis Hall, located in the Constitutional Village at Montpelier.
The Constitution of the United States was made for an intelligent people. The sovereign "We" of the Preamble's "We the People" live and act in the present tense when they "do ordain and establish this Constitution." Educators and other professionals who instruct and inform Americans about the foundational documents that are authorized in their name, therefore, perform the most significant civic duties in the land.
The Center for the Constitution was established by The Montpelier Foundation in 2003 with the aim of becoming the nation's leading resource in high-quality Constitutional education. It serves as a teaching academy, a place where professionals are immersed in an intellectual engagement with the theory and meaning of the American Constitution. Program activities take place in the Constitutional Village, where participants read, think, and discuss the ideas and innovations that underlie our nation's great experiment in self-government. The Center's programs vary by content, length, and audience but each are distinguished by three trademarks conducive to a constitutionally thoughtful citizenry:
- Constitutional thinking — using the fundamental ideas of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as the framework for civic reasoning in a country where, to be a full member of the American democracy, one must be first a "Citizen of the Constitution."
- Rigorous interpretation of primary documents — as sites where the innovative concepts that animate the nation's political institutions can be encountered in their original form, so that American civic life can be preserved, restored, or reformed by its citizens.
- Respect for the intellectual capacity of our participants — teachers and professionals whose status as colleagues can provide the power of a community of scholars at Montpelier, inquiring into the values that make us a Constitutional People.
The Constitution needs renewal and understanding each generation, or it's not going to last.Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy
More than 1,000 professionals from 42 states – mostly educators – have participated in the Center's programs. Regional scholarships are available to most seminars for school teachers, including Montpelier Weekend Seminars and We the People Summer Seminars. The Center also partners with school districts applying for Teaching American History Grants to provide workshops and seminars for their teachers. Programs have also been conducted for State Supreme Court Justices, college professors, and other professionals.
The Center for the Constitution also provides resources for elementary, middle, and high school classes in Virginia through its sponsorship of We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution. Through We the People, the Center conducts professional development programs for educators in various locations around the state, and sponsors four-day summer programs at Montpelier. The Center also sponsors the annual We the People State Competition for high schools students, who participate in simulated congressional hearings on various constitutional issues.