Founders' Key by Larry P. Arnn

After finishing my last book from Book Sneeze. I picked another book. I didn't pick a light romance but I picked a non fiction book. It wasn't a mistake the book was great it just took me a long time to make it through. I admit I don't read non fiction that often. I much prefer to get lost in a good novel. I guess I need my books to help me escape for a little the stresses and concerns of my everyday life. So I would read a bit of The Founders' Key and then go back to another novel or two before returning to it.

I knew it wouldn't be fair to review a book I hadn't read all the way through so I persevered until I made it through finally. Not that it wasn't interesting.  It is very good and well worth the read.  It was just work for my mind and not "mind candy" like I tend to gravitate toward.  I am sure I will revisit it again when we study the Constitution in our homeschooling.  The author makes so many great observations about how the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence work together. 

"The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.... are the products of careful crafting and they state specific reasons for the decisions they represent."

"The Delaration of Independence and the Constitution were both surrounded by debate and disagreement, and yet both were adopted, and both are still in force two centuries later and more. The debate reached a decision, and the decision still stands, even if the ground beneath it has sometimes shaken and even if it shakes now." 

The author also looks at how some of current politicians view these documents.  And uses Federalist papers to help us understand how the founding fathers' viewed things.

For example, when discussing the line from the Declaration which reads "all men are created equal" he explains that the founders were fighting a king who felt he was "born to rule, and his nobles born to help him."  The founders wanted to establish the fact that God made all men equal by being free and able to rule themselves. The book then goes on to talk about how equality is viewed now.

Today we think of equality as an outcome, something that comes about as a result of activity both personal and political, rather than the condition under which our actions begin and operate. Equality is now a thing that we can make. 

This is a great book for anyone who wants to learn more about these two founding documents and the thoughts and intents of those that wrote and debated about them. The author does point out a lot of places where we as a country have deviated from these intents or have disregarded or reinterpreted these documents.

A very interesting read!