The Bill of Rights was written to limit power. One civics lesson explains how.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice

“I observed… the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer,” Ben Franklin.

Bill of Rights Day is often marked with references to free speech, due process and other familiar rights. Less attention is paid to the reason those protections exist at all: to place clear limits on government power.

That question sits at the center of a handwritten civics lesson now being shared among homeschool students, one that walks through how the Constitution was designed to restrict government authority, including economic decision-making.

Susie Dean, a homeschool civics educator, centered one of her recent lessons on basic but often overlooked questions. What authority does the Constitution actually give government? And what does it leave off the table?

Her teaching begins with a modern example—an elected leader’s campaign platform—and asks students to measure those promises against the Bill of Rights. Dean states that New York’s election of a democratic socialist for mayor “exposes the importance of learning what socialism is.”

Handwritten civics notes reference democratic socialism, pointing to New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and several of his stated policy ideas.

Rather than treating socialism as a slogan, the lesson breaks it down and asks students to examine examples of how it “clashes with several core principles in the U.S. Constitution.” Dean argues that socialism is “animated by envy, causing the poor to resent those who have more than they have.”

From there, she moves them back to the founding documents themselves, using the Constitution to explain enumerated powers, property rights and where government authority stops.

The lesson starts with the idea of limited power. Students are directed to Article I, where Congress is given a defined list of responsibilities, such as coining money, establishing post offices and declaring war. Any powers not listed, students are reminded, are reserved to the states or the people.

In the lesson, that distinction becomes especially relevant when students look at policies built around centralized economic control. As part of the lesson, students are asked to look for concepts like central planning or state-run industries in the Constitution—and to note that those powers are not listed.

The Fifth Amendment comes next. Students read its language on property and government limits, then discuss what those protections actually apply to.

The Fifth Amendment becomes a focal point, particularly its treatment of private property.

Students are then taken to Article I, Section 10, where the Constitution restricts states from passing laws that impair contracts. That provision, Dean writes, prevents governments from forcing individuals into economic arrangements not of their choosing and reinforces the Constitution’s protection of free enterprise.

The Declaration of Independence comes next. Students are asked to read its language on liberty and think about what that means for individual choice.

The lesson connects the Declaration’s promise of liberty to individual economic choice.

The lesson does not present wealth as something guaranteed or equalized by government. Instead, it describes economic outcomes as the result of voluntary exchange, innovation and risk. Entrepreneurship comes up through examples. Students are asked to examine how value is created.

The final page consists of quotations from Thomas Sowell, Margaret Thatcher, Ben Franklin and Milton Friedman.

The lesson closes with historical reflections on freedom, work and responsibility.

What began as lessons for a small group of students are now handwritten pages shared directly with families who ask for them.

For someone reading it on Bill of Rights Day, the emphasis is obvious. The first ten amendments were created as limits on power, not an expansion of it.

Understanding those limits is not an academic exercise. It is the foundation of citizenship, and for these students, it begins not with slogans, but with the Constitution itself.