Admitted in June 20, 1863 by ratifying the U.S. Constitution, West Virginia became the thirty-fifth state. It is known as “The Mountain State” with the West Virginia State Constitution in current use adopted in 1872. The story of how West Virginia became a state is an amazing story, full of constitutional intrigue and sleight-of-hand worthy [...]
Orestes Brownson so esteemed New England people, customs, and institutions that they dominated his writings and fit at the heart of his political ideas. The danger of majoritarian tyranny hangs over republics. The dilemma of constituting a virtuous republic while also restricting interests, sects, and factions’ use of unchecked political power possessed eighteenth century American [...]
Maryland has one of the oldest state constitutions in use today, as well as one of the longest Declarations of Rights. As such, it provides both the historian and constitutional scholar much to occupy their time. A detailed study of the rights of Maryland’s citizens will be time well spent. Maryland is the seventh state [...]
The libertarian theory of constitutional law is clever and undoubtedly well-intentioned, but it is unsound from an originalist standpoint. It is historically untenable. It requires doctrinal leaps of Olympic caliber. Instead of increasing individual liberty, it would destroy the republican form of government by concentrating power in one branch of government. Debates regarding the role [...]
“Precedence,” as well as following or overturning precedents, is not limited to what is decided in new cases. It is also concerns the adherence to established principles of judicial jurisprudence. Without both kinds of precedence, there is no limit to the power of the judiciary... In the last installment of this survey of the judicial principle [...]
The Union soldiers defending Forts Sumter and Moultrie in Charleston Harbor had come to believe that their honor, as well as the honor of the Constitution and the federal government, was at stake. Shortly after dawn, around 6 am, on January 9, 1861, Captain Abner Doubleday spotted a steamer preparing to enter Charleston Harbor by [...]
To a very great extent, it was the Anti-Federalists, through their rhetoric and writings, who kept alive the spirit of localism and salvaged the great ideal of limited government inherited from the Revolution... The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828 by Saul Cornell (University of North Carolina Press, 1999) The Anti-Federalists who [...]
When Americans claim that the 2016 election was the most contentious in history or that we’ve never been as divided as a people as we are now, I have to try very hard not to be smug. After all, unlike folks who actually have to show a profit each year, I as a college professor [...]
Conservatism is a formal understanding of man. By understanding, I mean a verifiable truth, and by formal, I refer to a distinguishable methodology which permeated the celebrated thoughts of classical antiquity and scholastic medievalism. Conversely, Liberalism is an ideology for man. This is not to say that Conservatism is without its own prescriptions, but only [...]
James Iredell’s careful apologia for the American cause—a teaching which he developed in a series of essays and public letters written from 1773-1778—clearly contains a foreshadowing of what he thought should be in a constitution for the United States. James Iredell was born at Lewes, Sussex County, England. He was the eldest of the five [...]
Self-governance requires that those in positions of authority emphasize the importance of treating the Constitution as a "living document," in that phrase’s best sense—not as a surrender to expediency, but as a recognition that no nation can govern itself that fails to meet the responsibility of perpetually renewing the Constitution by living its constitution... Today’s [...]
It used to be a fundamental article of faith among American conservatives that the Constitution can only be understood in the context of the Founders’ original intentions. So, is it reasonable to believe that the Founders intended a president to have the power to pardon himself? The Constitution gives the president “Power to grant Reprieves [...]
If James Madison offered the American republic a five-course meal of epicurean excellence, Roger Sherman was the short-order fry cook in the nearest greasy spoon, a block or two away from Independence Square. The Collected Works of Roger Sherman ed. Mark David Hall (840 pages, Liberty Fund, 2016) “Sherman’s air is the reverse of grace; there [...]
What is interesting is the ultimate human predicament, when serious principles, serious commitments are at odds, and there is no apparent way to compose them in sight, except for giving something up, or giving in—that will be a surrender of self. Why are we in these predicaments to begin with? I am not a great [...]