Park University’s Constitution Day Event to Feature Film on Contrarian View of the U.S. Constitution

Sept. 20, 2021 — Park University’s annual Constitution Day event will be a showing of the film “Confounding Father: A Contrarian View of the U.S. Constitution” on Monday, Sept. 27. The film will start at 3 p.m. in the Jenkin and Barbara David Theater inside Alumni Hall on the University’s Parkville Campus. Admission is free and open to the public.

“Confounding Father” is a two-hour documentary that tells the story of the constitutional convention from the contrarian viewpoint of anti-federalists. It serves as a timely re-examination of the U.S. political system and features Luther Martin, a Maryland delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Martin opposed the continuation of the slave trade and the three-fifths clause; feared the unlimited taxing power of the national government; thought many framers of the U.S. Constitution were seeking an American empire; drank too much, talked too much and annoyed the famous founding fathers.

Constitution Day, or Citizenship Day as it is also called, is federally mandated for all institutions of higher education that receive federal funding. The legislation was enacted in 2004 and implemented by the U.S. Department of Education in 2005. It celebrates the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and those who have become U.S. citizens.