On May 28, 1892, a group of university professors and interested citizens met in the San Francisco law office of Warren Olney to found the nation’s first nongovernmental wilderness protection organization, the Sierra Club. Naturalist John Muir, whose popular magazine articles had done much to bring about the 1890 Congressional act creating Yosemite National Park, was unanimously named president of the new organization.

Once considered the great American contribution to constitutional government—governance by our own consent through elected, representative lawmakers—Congress is now the most disliked part of our political system. If we understand how Congress works we might better understand how to make representative government work in the 21st century.

Recently I emailed a question to teacher friends who are graduates of the Master of Arts in American History and Government (MAHG) program. “How do you teach students about the challenge of preserving self-government?” Brett Van Gaasbeek replied that he relied on Abraham Lincoln’s analysis of the challenge.