The founders never wished to create merely a centralized political universe. Yet, Federalists did aim to produce a central governing body as the sun of our political universe. That is why they came to be called Federalists... Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join William Allen as he examines the [...]
I suggest a crisis by collecting in one breath the terms national character and political disorder. Nor do I shrink from the implicit affirmation that the people of the United States confront an identity crisis at the very center of our national existence, at once moral and political and touching precisely upon the reciprocal [...]
The constitutionalism of The Federalist Papers directs our attention away from its scientific and historical roots and toward its particular ambitions. The reason for this is that the term “constitution” is too narrowly construed as a structure of institutions. That is merely the transferable portion – the Persian fire – of a given society, the characteristics [...]
The title of this essay gives away its complete content, without suggesting its conclusion-namely, that at least one of the two greatest Americans of the eighteenth century was indeed a lawmaker and not merely a symbol in the Constitutional Convention. Washington and Franklin, uniquely, have been lionized as “lending their names” to the founding. Not only [...]