The kind of constitutional knowledge required to be good citizens might be summarized in four elemental points. First, a good civic education would supply an understanding of the reasons for a separation of powers and what this means for the presidency and the courts. Too often, the separation of powers is lumped in with the catch-all "checks and balances," which are assumed to be ever-good. But dividing powers remains controversial, and introduces limitations that parliamentary systems, with their fusion of the legislative and the executive, do not face.
Second, it is fundamental to understand federalism, or the vertical division of power between the national government, the states, and the localities. Only the principle of federalism can make sense of the unequal representation of the Senate, in which citizens of Wyoming are fifty times more powerful than citizens of California. One may or may not approve of this; but approval and disapproval require consulting the reasons and principles that informed the federal design from the start.
Third, it is crucial for citizens to know the difference between representative democracy and direct democracy. Representation is not simply a concession to the difficulty of gathering all the citizens together in a vast and populous country—a difficulty more easily surmounted today by communications technology. The positive case for representation points to the most fundamental pathologies of democracy, including the elemental tendency of individuals to vex and oppress each other rather than to cooperate for their common good. One might say that the entire point of constitutional democracy is to insert some kind of distance or deliberative space between the sovereign people and the laws.
The fourth fundamental part of a good constitutional understanding is the most commonly celebrated: individual rights. The nation's struggle with itself to extend rights equally to blacks, to women, and to citizens generally is what supports American's civic pride. The story of American inclusion cannot be too familiar, nor is it complete. At the same time, exactly what should count as a "right" is itself always a matter of controversy that no excellent civics education should ignore. (Is there a right to marry? A right to strike?)
---SPSmith
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