“What the Constitution Means For Us”
September 17, 2025
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Brooks Memorial Library
224 Main St Brattleboro VT 05301
How does a pluralist country—lacking a dominant religion or shared tradition—hold itself together? The answer in 1787 was the Constitution. Unlike European nations ruled by monarchs, the United States entrusted governance to the people. But this raises a pressing question: who defines the “best interests” of the people? If a strong majority believes it alone understands those interests, the country risks being governed by a tyrannical majority. How, then, is that any better than monarchy?
The Constitution anticipates the dark side of democracy. In order to thwart majority rule,
the framers created a complicated apparatus that separates power into three branches
of government, giving each branch the authority to check the excesses of the others.
That’s the republican element. The federalist element forces the national government to
work with the states. All these complications are designed to slow the impulses of
ambitious individuals and stop the machinery of tyranny. But what if the People don’t
even know what the Constitution offers?
On September 17th at Brooks Memorial Library, Constitution Wrangler Meg Mott will
facilitate a public conservation on “What the Constitution Means for Us.” The question is
a variation on Heidi Schreck’s one-woman show, “What the Constitution Means To Me,”
in which Schreck reminisces on her high-school devotion to the Constitution and how
she eventually came to see it as inadequate to stopping the power grabs of wealthy,
white men.
Mott explains that concerns about the effectiveness of the Constitution are not new.
Abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison cursed the Constitution as an “agreement with
Hell.” The entire structure, said Garrison, privileges the property rights of slaveholders
over the natural rights of human beings. But other abolitionists disagreed. Frederick
Douglass saw the Constitution as “innocent.” It was the actions of “wicked men” that
threw shade on its words. If people were to actually read the Constitution, he argued,
they would see how it gives ordinary people a way to stop tyranny.
“Douglass was very taken with the Preamble,” says Mott. “The purpose of our
government is to serve the people in very specific ways: to establish Justice, insure
domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty. We won’t agree on how to achieve those ends but
that’s the beauty of a federalist republic. It gives us lots of opportunities to disagree
better.
Meg Mott a former political theory professor at the former Marlboro College in Vermont & at Emerson College in Boston. She currently serves as the Putney Town Meeting moderator.
Since the 2016 presidential election, Mott has turned her attention to improving public debate between progressives and conservatives. Her Debating Our Rights series focuses on the Bill of Rights and Reconstruction Amendments. Each presentation focuses on one Amendment, giving room to competing interpretations and encouraging audience members to jump into the debate. She recently joined the Vermont Speakers Bureau in order to move these conversations around the state.
This program is part of The America 250 Town Hall Series, a collaboration with Brooks
Memorial Library, Windham World Affairs Council, and Vermont Independent Media,
publisher of The Commons, and is made possible, in part, through a generous grant
from the Vermont Humanities Council.
No registration required.
