THE MAGRUDER AND GLENCOE CASE, PART IX

[Note:  If the reader has taken up reading this blog with this posting, he/she is helped by knowing that this posting is the next one in a series of postings.  The series begins with the posting, “The Natural Rights’ View of Morality” (February 25, 2020, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-natural-rights-view-of-morality.html).  Overall, the series addresses how the study of political science has affected the civics curriculum of the nation’s secondary schools.  Part of that influence is how the discipline helps guide civics textbook writers.]

If this is the reader’s first time viewing this blog, he/she should look up the preceding posting; it gives a good description as to what the blog is currently attempting to do.  In a word, it reviews and evaluates two popular American government textbooks[1] used mostly to instruct seniors in high school.  That posting describes that in this and the upcoming postings, the blog analyzes random selected paragraphs from these textbooks.  This posting selects three paragraphs from Magruder’s American Government.

Titles:

Topic 4, “The Legislative Branch,” Lesson 3, “The Expressed Powers,” Page 167 –

Content:

Limits on the Taxing Power  Congress does not have an unlimited power to tax.  As with all other powers, the taxing power must be used in accord with all other provisions of the Constitution.  Thus, Congress cannot lay a tax on church services, for example – because such a tax would violate the 1^st Amendment.  Nor could it lay a poll tax as a condition for voting in federal elections, for that would violate the 24^th Amendment.[2]

Context:

          After describing the powers of the federal government to tax people and businesses, this cited paragraph introduces the constitutional limitations in taxing powers that the federal government must respect according to law.

Evaluation:

          Of interest to this review is how Magruder’s introduces the limitations on the federal government’s taxing power that are based on individual rights, the right to freely exercise religion and the right to vote without constraints which is what a poll tax is especially on low income citizens.  This unaffected approach, in itself, is fine if this was the exception.  But it is not.

          The greatest constraint is the political culture that historically has demonstrated a healthy antagonism to unreasonable taxation.  That probably is the greatest restraint on unreasonable taxes.  One cannot think of a more offensive act by government on a person’s dignity than abusive taxes. 

Jonah Goldberg offers a historical description on how pre-democratic societies were governed by bandits who used their institutionalized power to exploit a population.[3]  One of the chief means by doing their banditry was/is through taxation.  That sense might be sobering, but for federation theory, it is quite relevant.

This paragraph, therefore, falls well within the guidance of the natural rights view of governance and politics.  That view emphasizes individual rights – as natural – and opts for a structural/functional language to explain the form and purpose of taxation.

Titles:

Topic 4, “The Legislative Branch,” Lesson 4, “The Implied and Nonlegislative Powers,” Page 183 –

Content:

Members of the House who supported the articles of impeachment contended that the acts of lying under oath and of withholding evidence were within the meaning of the Constitution’s phrase “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  Therefore, they argued, the President’s immediate removal from office was justified.[4]

Context:

          This paragraph describes, in journalistic style, the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.  It is located in that portion of the book dedicated to the oversight role Congress plays in placing Constitutional checks on the other branches of government.  This description follows a similar account of the Andrew Johnson impeachment in 1867.  The account is then followed by describing the near impeachment of Richard Nixon and, in this edition, since it was published before the impeachment of Donald Trump, did not include that case.

Evaluation:

          Given the neutral language of the natural rights view – it only promotes the value of natural liberty – one is treated to an unemotional account of this rare event.  Of course, this last claim needs to be offered with some reserve.  This writer, during his lifetime, has lived through three incidences of this process – Clinton’s, Nixon’s, and now Trump’s.  But the point is, shouldn’t any account convey some emotion if only to express disdain with the idea a president would break the law?  Or with the idea that such an extreme measure – one that is aimed at undoing a national election for the highest office – should meet some valued threshold?  The journalistic style is devoid of such language.

          A federally moved reader would expect a more judgmental account if only to stir up questioning or legitimate concern that some important offense might be at play, one that undermines the partnership the citizenry holds among its members.  Imagine that one runs a business and finds out or seriously suspects his/her partner is pocketing money from the till.  Would that call for a journalistic account in one’s mind?  Barely, one would be incensed – and rightly so.

Titles:

Topic 6, “The Executive Branch at Work,” Lesson 3, “The Independent Agencies,” Page 282 –

Content:

The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), for example, is the government’s major crop-loan and farm-subsidy agency.  It is located within the Department of Agriculture, and the secretary of agriculture chairs its seven-member board.  The CCC carries out most of its functions through a line agency in the department of Agriculture – the Farm Service Agency – which is also subject to the direct control of the secretary.[5]

Context:

          This paragraph is one of numerous paragraphs that describe the structural/functional attributes of an element within the federal government.  In the executive branch, the total number of such elements is almost beyond calculation.  This particular agency is listed as a government corporation.  The structural distinctions that make it so are reviewed prior to this paragraph.

Evaluation:

          Most of Magruder’s resembles this paragraph.  That is, the book is full of structural information that describes how some entity within the political system is arranged or organized and how it basically functions within the total system.  That would be both internally and externally with the other entities with which it usually interacts.  One does get a good handle as to why the entity exists and how other entities and actors depend on that described entity to do what it is set up to do.

          The concern of an adherent to federation theory is that a student is exposed to a mechanical view of how the entity is merely a part in this overall machine that provides some service that Congress has decided needs to be provided.  There are some references to controversial aspects of these agencies – the text illustrates a political cartoon that questions the true effect bank regulations have on well-situated bankers.  But these are not well highlighted and function as passing concerns.  The overall take-away is how a portion of the government is set up.

          In general, these descriptions employ positive language; that is, they describe the structure and function as what is needed to meet some legitimate concern.  Naturally, using this approach – one not focused on some relevant problem, say the opioid crisis – the emphasis is on covering the “waterfront” instead of delving into any dysfunctional state of affairs that might be impinging on the students’ lives.  The whole approach lends itself to covering the material, not to involving oneself in it.

          The next posting will address the random page 674 and give an overall reaction to the selected Magruder pages.  Yet to come in this blog is a similar review of the Glencoe text.

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[1] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government (Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2019) AND Richard C. Remy, Glencoe United States Government:  Democracy in Action (New York, NY:  McGraw-Hill/Glencoe, 2010).

[2] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government, 167, emphasis (bolden type) in original.

[3] Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West:  How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy (New York, NY:  Crown Forum, 2018).

[4] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government, 183.

[5] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government, 282.

THE MAGRUDER AND GLENCOE CASE, PART VIII

[Note:  If the reader has taken up reading this blog with this posting, he/she is helped by knowing that this posting is the next one in a series of postings.  The series begins with the posting, “The Natural Rights’ View of Morality” (February 25, 2020, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-natural-rights-view-of-morality.html).  Overall, the series addresses how the study of political science has affected the civics curriculum of the nation’s secondary schools.  Part of that influence is how the discipline helps guide civics textbook writers.]

Of late this blog has reviewed various aspects of the leading American government textbooks used in the nation’s high schools.  The blog is asking whether in fact their content has been guided by a perspective of governance and politics this blog calls the natural rights view.  As readers of this blog know, it promotes the use of the federation theory view.  The blog also maintains that certain conditions in schools are obstacles to providing a civics curriculum that encourages a communal, collaborative, and a disposition to engage in principled compromise – in short, to help in developing a federated people.

          To support this claim, the blog through this current series of postings has been reporting an analysis of those textbooks.  To date, that report has described a check of their tables of content to get a sense what the books highlight, a check into the various indices to see if the texts address federalist topics, a review of a feature a former edition of one the text reported on political engagement opportunities and skills, and with this posting begins a look at the actual written content of the two textbooks.

The two textbooks are Magruder’s American Government[1]and Glencoe United States Government:  Democracy in Action.[2]  For each textbook, the writer randomly identified five pages and within each page, selected a random paragraph.[3]  What follows is a rundown of what each of these chosen paragraphs shares with students, what the context of the paragraph is, and an evaluation of the paragraph. 

This evaluation asks: 

·       Does the paragraph convey a natural rights description or explanation of some aspect of governance or politics?  If so, how?

·       Does the paragraph entice the interest of the student by being relevant or entertaining is some way?  If so, how?

·       Does the paragraph relate to some federalist values or concerns such as communal, collaborative, and/or principled compromising political interactions? 

·       And summarily, do the answers to these questions add to the evidence that the natural rights view does, in fact, guide the civics curriculum of the nation?

In terms of the Magruder text, this writer selected the following pages (in ascending order):  51, 167, 183, 282, and 674.[4]  The review below indicates the title information of each paragraph, content of the chosen paragraph, a description of its context, and an evaluation (based on the above questions).

Titles: 

Topic 2, “The Beginnings of American Government,” Lesson 1, “Origins of American Political Ideals,” Page 51 –

Content:

The governments of these three [proprietary] colonies were much like those in the royal colonies.  The governor, however, was appointed by the proprietor.  In Maryland and Delaware, the legislatures were bicameral.  In Pennsylvania, the legislature was a unicameral body.  The Frame of Government, a constitution that William Penn drew up for that colony in 1682, was, for its time, exceedingly democratic.  As in royal colonies, appeals of decisions in the proprietary colonies could be carried to the king in London.[5]

Context:

          The obvious purpose of this paragraph is to instruct students as to the historical origins of the ideals that would influence the origins of the nation.  Here, the case of William Penn is cited and his formulation of a constitution. 

Evaluation:

While the constitution was not the product of a people coming together (a federalist requirement), Penn was influenced by “federal” ideals.  For example, this brief overview from another source offers:

Penn visited America once more, in 1699.  In those years he put forward a plan to make a federation of all English colonies in America.  There have been claims that he also fought slavery, but that seems unlikely, as he owned and even traded slaves himself.  However, he did promote good treatment for slaves, and other Pennsylvania Quakers [an unpopular religious sect in England] were among the earliest fighters against slavery.[6]

Since proprietorships were business arrangements, Penn, while harboring the racists attitudes of his time, did demonstrate a genuine federal bent.  His efforts were of inclusion that he weighed against his commercial interests.  None of this is included in the cited paragraph.

          Should it be?  This writer believes it should since federalist ideals were taking hold across all the colonies (especially in the New England colonies)[7] although the version of federalism being adopted is what this blog calls parochial/traditional federalism.  That is, those who were included in any federal arrangement were highly exclusive – e.g., it would not include African slaves.  But this version did help introduce the value of inclusion as Penn promoted it.

          As being relevant to what a government course should highlight, the opinion here is that this is more a topic that should be included in an American History course, but whether it should be included in an American government course is contingent on a better contextual setting.  The mode of its presentation in Magruder lacks sufficient functional bases for its inclusion. 

The story of Penn is a whole lot more interesting and entertaining than what is offered in this text.  As presented, this writer feels the Magruder account becomes just further information to which students would not pay much attention.

Next posting will review page 167 and evaluate its content.

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[1] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government (Boston, MA:  Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2019).

[2] Richard C. Remy, Glencoe United States Government:  Democracy in Action (New York, NY:  McGraw-Hill/Glencoe, 2010).

[3] If the random chosen page happens to contain “end of lesson” material (an insert or illustration of some sort), the next preceding page is selected.  That happened with the page 51 selection, the random page identified is 53, but that page contained inserted information – excerpts from historical documents – that further illustrated the information contained within the lesson.

[4] While the pages were randomly chosen, the blogger “rigged” the choices to assure that at least one page was situated within those portions of the book that addressed some governmental entity of the federal government since, as the earlier review of the chapter titles indicates, a great bulk of the textbook is dedicated to those entities.  In terms of this list of pages, page 282 was so chosen.

[5] Daniel M. Shea, Magruder’s American Government, 51, emphasis (bolden type) in original.

[6] “Brief History of William Penn,” William Penn, n.d., accessed June 8, 2020, https://www.ushistory.org/penn/bio.htm .

[7] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966) and Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987).