Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Civics In A Year
A Government of Laws, Not Men
Professor Josh Dunn explains the rule of law as the alternative to tyranny and a means to prevent arbitrary power. He traces its origins from Aristotle's concept that "law is reason unaffected by desire" through the American founders' attempts to create institutions that force reflection on the common good rather than self-interest.
• Rule of law requires three principles: constitutionalism, equality, and transparency
• Constitutionalism establishes rules of governance ahead of time through separation of powers, checks and balances
• Equality means laws must be applied identically to everyone regardless of wealth or status
• Transparency requires laws to be known, understandable, and accessible to citizens
• James Madison worried about laws becoming "so voluminous they cannot be read or so incoherent they cannot be understood"
• John Adams described the goal as creating "a government of laws and not of men" in the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780
• Modern challenges include the vast volume of laws and regulations created by multiple levels of government and administrative agencies
• The rule of law is necessary for freedom because citizens must know what is allowed to direct their actions
Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum!
School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
All right, welcome back everyone. This is actually the last question for our first section and I am really excited to have Professor Josh Dunn with us. I have worked with Dr Dunn on many occasions. He is now a professor and the executive director at the Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee, knoxville. Dr Dunn, thank you so much for being here. And our question today looks at the rule of law. So can you tell us what is the rule of law and why is it important?
Speaker 2:So I'll start with the second part of that question first, and it's great to be with you again. The answer to the second part of that question is the alternative to tyranny. The American founders saw the rule of law as the antidote to arbitrary power, and arbitrary power was the definition of tyranny. I want to go back in time a little bit, though, and look at what Aristotle said about the rule of law. The most famous thing ever written on the rule of law comes from his politics, and it's this passage. He said he who bids the law rule may be deemed to be God and reason rule alone, but he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast, for desire is a wild beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers, even when they are the best of men. Law is reason unaffected by desire. Law is reason unaffected by desire.
Speaker 2:I think there's a deep truth to that, and when we start to look at the American founders and the people who influenced them, like John Locke, we see some of this conception of the rule of law emerging in their thought, and then also the mechanisms for trying to attain it.
Speaker 2:Now you'll notice, of course, this might be a little bit of a problem. It says if you want the law to rule, you're bidding God to rule, and so in the absence of theocracy, you can't have that and reason to rule alone. And then he says if you have man rule, you add an element of the beast. An element of the beast. So the problem is is that we can't really have rule by God if we don't have theocracy, so we're stuck with human beings, men, and so there's this element of the beast. And so the trick is trying to figure out how to get to reason unaffected by desire, that part of us that allows us to transcend our own passions and desires and push us towards the common good, which is ultimately what the rule of law is supposed to lead us towards.
Speaker 1:So in the Aristotle quote you gave, talking about reason unaffected by desire, can you, for our listeners, kind of go into that a little bit more Like what does it mean to be unaffected by desire in terms of governing and things like that?
Speaker 2:So I think the best way to think about it is that you are put in a position where you are forced to reflect on the common good rather than just your own good. Everyone comes to the political table wanting what they want. They have their own interests, and the language of the Federalist Papers and Federalist 10 were all parts of factions, and so what the founders tried to do was organize the regime in such a way and the institutions in such a way so that people were forced to set aside their own immediate interest and reflect on the public good. And you actually see James Madison say this at the end of Federalist 51. He talks about how, in the extended republic of the United States, along with institutions such as separation of powers, checks and balances and federalism, is going to be very difficult for one group to unite against all the common interests, and so people would be forced to reflect on justice and the general good, and so that would be reason unaffected by desire.
Speaker 1:So a properly structured political regime kind of forces you to think beyond your own immediate self-interest currently so, for, you know, talking to students or anybody, that's like you know, this sounds like you know, aristotle is back in the day and James Madison, you know, back in the day. How does rule of law affect us today?
Speaker 2:Well, so if you look at the founder's understanding of the rule of law, you can at least see three principles that are required to be met in order to achieve it you have to have constitutionalism, you have to have equality and you have to have transparency. So you think about constitutionals and what is constitutional and really what constitutionalism is? Establishing the rules of the game ahead of time so that when government makes decisions it has to follow these fixed rules. And you can see that with separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism in the Constitution. So constitutionalism, I think, matters for us today. Everyone should understand that and recognize that the law and again you go back you can see John Locke talk about this there shouldn't be one rule for the wealthy person and another for the poor. Everyone has to be treated equally under the law in order for you to really have the rule of law. Otherwise you just kind of have arbitrary power. If some people are treated differently, it doesn't mean social equality. It means that the legal rules are applied to everyone in the same way. And then transparency, and transparency would mean that the laws have to be known and understandable, established laws or rules. So to promulgate means to announce. In other words, you can't have secret laws. Yeah, communist regimes loved secret laws because that meant that they could always get people, but that wasn't the law then, because you never knew what you were allowed to do and what you weren't allowed to do.
Speaker 2:And in a way, you can think of it this way that the rule of law is necessary for freedom, because if you don't know what is allowed and not allowed, you don't know how to direct and order your actions. And then the understandable part of transparency. So when Locke talked about they had to be established. That meant that they couldn't be routinely changed, because that would make it difficult to know what they are. And another element of that would be that they have to be accessible to the people. And this raises perhaps some uncomfortable questions for us.
Speaker 2:Today. When we have such a voluminous body of law, is it really possible for the ordinary citizen to know what is allowed and what's not allowed? And then, when you have administrative agencies, for instance, what's not allowed, and then, when you have administrative agencies, for instance, constructing rules that have the full of force and effective law, that makes it even more difficult. So you have the laws that emerge from Congress, the president, from the legislatures state legislatures, local governments, but then you also have these administrative agencies at multiple levels of government as well. So there is yeah, I think you could ask some questions about how understandable it is, how transparent it is for the ordinary citizen today when you look, say, at the Federal Register.
Speaker 1:And I love that you kind of go through these three principles. And I want to talk quickly about equality under the law. So that means if you're a congressperson, if you're a judge, if you're a teacher or a student, the law applies to everyone equally, is that correct?
Speaker 2:on you, throw you in jail. It's charging you with a crime. The rule of law requires that you be given the same legal procedures as everyone else. That just because you might be an unpopular defendant doesn't mean that they get to waive your right to confront your accuser or have a jury of your peers or a right to counsel. That would be equality of the law in the judicial setting. That would be equality of the law in the judicial setting.
Speaker 1:So when you talk about accessibility, I'm thinking about like the amount of laws there are and like understanding what that is. Is there any founder that?
Speaker 2:kind of gave us a quote or like some insight on that. Yes, in Federalist 62, james Madison said it will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. So he obviously was deeply concerned about this potential for the laws to you could say metastasize and become so large and incoherent that no one could actually understand them.
Speaker 1:And then, is there any kind of in the founding era applications to this Like were there any states, any constitutions like that? That would give some insight as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So one great place to look would be the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. So John Adams came back to Massachusetts he had been serving in France as a diplomat for us during the Revolutionary War and he returned for a few months to Massachusetts and then promptly wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts and the conclusion there, the Constitution that he wrote when, if you look at it, it contains many of the same principles that you end up seeing in the federal Constitution, such as separation of powers. But he said, the end result of this is supposed to create a government of laws and not of men. The goal of this, these institutions, this constitutional framework, was to create a government of laws and not of men. So this was deeply embedded in their minds. They thought it was absolutely crucial and the point of the Constitution, the point of the Massachusetts Constitution, the point of the US Constitution, was try to achieve this result of a government of laws and not of men.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Dr Dunn, thank you so much. You've given us so much to think about in such a short time and I really appreciate your time and expertise.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Liz. It's great to see you again.
