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 [...]
Consider: Where in the Constitution does one find the separation of powers mentioned? Where does the expression “checks and balances” occur? They are not in the Constitution. We use them because they are terms upon the basis of which the Constitution was accepted. And it is the agreement reached on those things that constitutes [...]
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 [...]