The American Experiment: Liberty for All?
Abraham Lincoln famously remarked that the core principle of the Declaration of Independence--“liberty to all”--was “the apple of gold” at the very heart of the American experiment in constitutional government. Was he right? America’s harshest critics–on both the left and the right–argue that the Declaration was fraudulent from the start, while others see it as representing a noble aspiration that has never been realized. In light of these critiques, and as we celebrate the Declaration’s 250th anniversary, we must ask ourselves: Are the principles of the American experiment truly the “apple of gold” that Lincoln described, or are they actually rotten at their core? Using Lincoln’s contention as a jumping off point, this seminar will explore the principles of the Declaration of Independence, their meaning and development, and the extent to which they have been realized over the course of the country’s history. Participants will engage in Socratic-style discussion and closely study several primary texts, including: the Declaration of Independence; writings of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton; selections from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America on the tensions between liberty and equality; selections from the Lincoln-Douglas debates; and the speeches of Frederick Douglass, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, MLK, and Clarence Thomas.
Academic Directors
Vincent Phillip Muñoz
Vincent Phillip Muñoz is the Tocqueville Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. He is also the Founding Director of ND’s Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government. Dr. Muñoz writes and teaches across the fields of constitutional law, American politics, and political philosophy with a focus on religious liberty and the American Founding. He won a
National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to support his most recent book, Religious Liberty and the American Founding: Natural Rights and the Original Meanings of the First Amendment Religion Clauses (2022), published by the University of Chicago Press. Articles
related the project have appeared in American Political Science Review, The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Notre Dame Law Review, American Political Thought, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Journal of Constitutional Law. Dr. Muñoz’s first book, God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson (Cambridge University Press, 2009) won the Hubert Morken Award from the American Political Science Association for the best publication on religion and politics in 2009 and 2010. His First Amendment church-state case reader, Religious Liberty and the American Supreme Court: The Essential Cases and Documents (Rowman & Littlefield) was first published in 2013 (revised edition, 2015) and is being used at Notre Dame and other leading universities. In 2019, he joined the editorial team of American Constitutional Law (11th edition, Routledge, 2020), the leading constitutional law casebooks designed for undergraduate instruction. His scholarship has been cited numerous times in church-state Supreme Court opinions, most recently by Justice Alito in
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021) and by both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas in Espinoza v. Montana (2020). An award-winning teacher and a popular lecturer, Dr. Muñoz has spoken at over 100 colleges and universities in the past several years. He received his B.A. at Claremont McKenna College, his M.A. at Boston College, and his Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate School.
Tyler Castle
Tyler Castle is Associate Director of the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government at the University of Notre Dame, overseeing the Tocqueville Fellowship Program, the Constitutional Studies Minor, and other programs for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as alumni. Concurrently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in Notre Dame’s Political Science department. His dissertation explores the philosophical grounding for political moderation within the Christian intellectual tradition, focusing on the thought of Augustine, Blaise Pascal, and Alexis de Tocqueville. Mr. Castle’s broader research interests are in Christian political thought, liberalism, and American constitutionalism, and his first scholarly article, being published by the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly in Fall 2025, is entitled “What Holds Us Together? Aquinas on Affable Citizenship.” Before coming to Notre Dame, Mr. Castle spent almost a decade at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, where he served as director of its Initiative on Faith & Public Life and contributed to the institute’s broader efforts to improve the quality of political discourse on college campuses. Previously, he was a fellow with the John Jay Institute and received his B.A. in Political Science from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA.