It would be worse than a shame to get rid of the singular invention of those who drafted the Constitution of 1787. It would be a mistake, and a very big mistake at that. Just what was that unique entity? It would be the creation of “electors” to serve in what we have come to [...]
Harry Jaffa’s constitutional history of America’s late-eighteenth-century is not credible nor, in keeping with many of his own pronouncements, is it conservative. The writing of history, as we have learned from authors as diverse as Thucydides, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Butterfield, Collingwood, and Oakeshott can and has been done in strikingly different ways while serving radically different [...]
If we consider the Founders’ arguments for the Constitution, we find not only that they intended it to be undemocratic, but that they would defend even its most undemocratic elements on “popular” grounds. What might appear to the partisans of democracy today as outdated roadblocks to efficient government are for the Founders politically salutary forms [...]
The Constitution described by John Dickinson in his “Letters of Fabius” is a model of prudence and moderation, based not primarily on theoretical arguments, but on experience and an extensive knowledge of history. Though virtually ignored by scholars in recent decades, John Dickinson was one of the most influential of the American Founders. When he [...]
The film “Nothing But the Truth” is a well-played, honest effort to flesh out First Amendment issues in a dangerous world of often divided loyalties. “I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” [...]
Our collective confusion about the American experience begins at the beginning. Most Americans who think about such questions imagine that they understand the Declaration of Independence, though many of them may be puzzled that it did not (and does not) produce the results one might expect from the commitments which they believe it makes. After [...]
“Dred Scott” is a landmark decision because it answered questions regarding slavery that the Supreme Court had not previously addressed. It is also one of the most infamous decisions, furthering the great divide facing the nation regarding the question of slavery and moving the country further down the path toward the Civil War. Dred Scott [...]
It is a source of gratification and of encouragement to me to observe that the great result of this experiment upon the theory of human rights has, at the close of that generation by which it was formed, been crowned with success equal to the most sanguine expectations of its founders. The following is John [...]
The time may come when it shall be the duty of a State, in order to preserve itself from the oppression of the general government, to have recourse to the sword—In which case the proposed form of government declares that the State and every of its citizens who act under its authority are guilty of [...]
People ask why a few of us presidential junkies would like to see Presidents’ Day changed back to Washington’s Birthday. The technical explanation has to do with a misguided law called HR 15951 that was passed in 1968 to make federal holidays less complicated. The real answer is simply this: George Washington is our greatest [...]
The American constitutional tradition stretches back beyond our shores to England. It is a tradition shaped on this continent by experience and the character of the people. In this vision, local communities play the primary role in government, protecting the fundamental institutions in which good character is formed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, [...]
With increasing frequency since the turn of the twentieth century, many scholars have raised troubling questions about the founders and their motives. Did they really believe in republican government, or were they intent on constructing a system that would protect elite interests under the rubric of a republican form? Can we take them at their [...]
What is the duty of government? What are the rights of man in a civilized society? What is the purpose of law? Mortimer Adler, scholar of, and advocate for, the Great Books, attempts to answer these questions and more in the following interview. Interposed with scenes of discussion from a seminar conducted at St. John's [...]
When the law reckons with the matter of life, it inevitably reckons with its own foundation and its own essence. When we attempt to define life in law, in other words, we are necessarily, though implicitly, defining law in an analogous sense at the same time. The background assumption of my brief essay is that [...]