Constitution 101: The Progressive Rejection of the Founding
The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast
Hillsdale College
4.6 • 621 Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
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Summary
On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan discuss the progressive view of government before introducing Ronald J. Pestritto.
The United States Constitution was designed to secure the natural rights proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. Signed by Constitutional Convention delegates on September 17, 1787—Constitution Day—it was ratified by the American people and remains the most enduring and successful constitution in history.
In this twelve-lecture course, students will examine the political theory of the American Founding and subsequent challenges to that theory throughout American history. Topics covered in this course include: the natural rights theory of the Founding, the meaning of the Declaration and the Constitution, the crisis of the Civil War, the Progressive rejection of the Founding, and the nature and form of modern liberalism.
Progressives rejected the timeless principles of the American Founding and instead argued that the ends of government ought to be relative to historical circumstances. They viewed the Constitution as a “living” document, which could be transformed to meet the exigencies of the modern age.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast. I'm Jeremiah Regan. |
| 0:12.2 | And I'm Juan Davalos. We're back with Constitution 101, The Meaning and History of the Constitution. |
| 0:17.4 | Lecture number eight today, the Progressive Rejection of the Founding. |
| 0:20.6 | We have Dr. RJ Pastrido |
| 0:22.6 | talking about the progressives, and there's really no one better in the country to explain |
| 0:26.3 | this view. You mentioned the philosophy of the progressives in brief. In a previous introduction, |
| 0:31.7 | they believe that history is always improving. The past is worse than the future, which will |
| 0:36.2 | always be better. We get a little bit of a view |
| 0:38.8 | into the roots of that intellectual position. And we're going to start seeing why it's so destructive |
| 0:45.2 | for American culture, for American government, and it's been something that has been prevailing |
| 0:50.1 | ever since over more than 100 years now. In this lecture, you will hear the progressive |
| 0:56.0 | view of citizenship, which is quite different from the founder's view of citizenship and probably |
| 1:00.7 | different from what you think of as citizenship. Start with the founders. They thought all men are |
| 1:06.1 | created equal. Government should protect their life, liberty, and property, and it should operate on the principle |
| 1:11.7 | of consent. If it's operating on the principle of consent, that means the citizen has to understand |
| 1:17.4 | their rights, has to be virtuous, and then has to participate, has to have a say in the laws that |
| 1:23.1 | govern them. Progressives thought, no, modern life is very complicated. We have. The internet and iPhones, |
| 1:29.5 | they didn't have that back then. They had trains, and they thought that was pretty advanced. |
| 1:33.2 | They have all this advanced technology, and life is too complicated for the average citizen, or |
| 1:38.0 | translated. Life is too complicated for uneducated, uncredentialed idiots like you. You need someone with a PhD from Johns Hopkins |
| 1:46.3 | to tell you what is best for yourself. And that's going to be categorized in discrete disciplines. |
| 1:52.6 | You will have someone who knows what's best for the environment. You'll have someone who knows what's |
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