On the 250th anniversary of its signing, Americans will continue to focus on the Declaration of Independence as a statement of rights (natural and God-given) against the abuses of a tyrannical government. When we celebrate Constitution Day in September, we will likely focus on its own statement of rights as limitations on government power.
This emphasis on individual liberties draws attention away from other purposes that declarations and constitutions serve — the creation of political and social community. Running underneath the Declaration’s grounding on John Locke’s social contract theory and David Hume’s theory of knowledge as experience is a communitarian vision of political and social life.
Dr. Hans J. Hacker will explore an alternative view of the Declaration as the creation of both political community and socially constructed knowledge. The document’s final words (“. . .we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”) establish the political community that leads to the social and civil community that created our Constitution and constitutional culture.
Hacker is an associate professor in the Department of Government, Law & Policy at Arkansas State University. He teaches courses on constitutional law, civil rights and liberties, jurisprudence and democratic theory. A graduate of the University of North Texas (bachelor’s, 1988) and Ohio State University (master’s, 1994; Ph.D., 2000), his primary
research emphases include Supreme Court processes and American Pragmatism. He has taught at the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University and The College of William & Mary. He is the author of the textbook Criminal Law and the Constitution 2nd Edition (Kendall Hunt, 2023), The Brooding Spirit of the Law (Law and Society Review, 2015), and
The Culture of Conservative Christian Litigation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Along with his dog, Lady, he makes his home in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
