Taking Liberty

William Forstchen, a teacher at the Oak Grove-Coburn School in Vassalboro, Me., wanted to give his eleventh-and twelfth-grade students a lesson about their democratic heritage. So he drew up petitions containing a text of the Bill of Rights with a preamble asking that the "crime coddling" Ten Amendments be repealed. The high school students started circulating the petitions door to door, at shopping centers, even near the state capitol building in Augusta.

Some civics lesson. More than 70% of the people solicited--many of whom read through the whole petition--agreed that the Bill of Rights should be repealed and signed their names. One lady gushed: "God bless you for what you're doing." In desperation, Forstchen resorted to censorship. He tore up the petitions and burned them in his fireplace.

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