Monday names your right. Wednesday shows the men living the hard work for your right. Friday takes you to a day the papers were sent out to the public.
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Monday ~ Freedom of conscience
First Principles · 26 October 2026
Locke wrote in A Letter Concerning Toleration that the care of souls is not committed to the civil magistrate. God has never given any man authority to compel another to his religion. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, section 16, said the same before the Declaration of Independence: religion can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence. Force may make hypocrites; it cannot make believers. The people under the Articles already held this right.
Read it here: First Principles — Freedom of conscience
Wednesday ~ Suspicion is a virtue
They Lived It · 28 October 2026
Patrick Henry stood in the Virginia Ratifying Convention in June 1788 and said suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. He had already used the same voice in 1765 against the Stamp Act and in 1775 at St. John’s Church. The oratory was not a performance. It was the duty of a citizen who still held the rights and who still had the power to refuse the hire when the steward stepped over the fence.
Read it here: They Lived It — Suspicion is a virtue
Friday ~ The papers open the argument
This Day · 30 October 2026
In October 1787 the newspapers carried both sides. Centinel I, the Federal Farmer, and Brutus warned against surrendering the liberties already secured under the state frameworks and the Articles. Federalist No. 1 answered that the people were called to deliberate on a new Constitution. Households that never sat in Philadelphia or New York read the question: whether the thirteen states should continue as confederated republics or be reduced to one great republic. The papers put the choice in front of the people who still held the rights.
Read it here: This Day — The papers open the argument
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