Federalism

Our Enemy: The (Imperial) Presidency

Many Americans fear the dysfunction in Congress and the rise of an “activist" Supreme Court. Both worries are misplaced, at least in relationship to the larger problem at hand: the growth of presidential imperialism... Albert...

The Other Founders: The Legacy of Anti-Federalism

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,...

A Popular Defense of Our Undemocratic Constitution

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 What might appear to the partisans of democracy today as outdated roadblocks to efficient...

The Revolutionary Conservatism of Jefferson & Small Republics

Americans have tried the Hamiltonian experiment of centralized government, usury, and gigantism long enough. Surely it is time, somewhere, for the Jeffersonian vision to begin to reappear... Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Arthur J. Versluis as he explores...

Ideas and American Politics

The fear and suspicion of ideas and intellect rest on historical foundations buried deep in the American consciousness. Many Americans, in fact, have long disparaged the life of the mind, and populist democracy has increasingly required an appeal to vulgarity and ignorance...

Misunderstanding John C. Calhoun’s Federalism

Far from feeding disunion, John C. Calhoun understood that a more perfect Union listened to the representative voices of the states, rather than the despotic voice of the “nation” represented in the federal Congress... I...

Marshall vs. Jefferson: Then and Now

In sharp contrast to John Marshall’s elitist orientation—with its em­phasis on the primacy of the national government, and restraint of the excesses of democracy—Thomas Jefferson’s philosophy was at once populistic and highly individualistic... Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to...

Constitutional Drift & the Challenge of Self-Governance

There is no such thing as a finished constitution. As a foundational feature of political organization, constitutions are constantly being renewed or altered, but rarely are they static, and never for long. In the course...

Communitarianism and the Federal Idea

The communitarian movement has arisen as an effort to address the evident and growing deficiencies of modern liberalism, which seems unable to think beyond the sovereign autonomy of rights-bearing individuals. But communitarianism has considerable deficiencies of its own....

Ukraine: The Case for Federalism

The potential solution to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, consistently put forward by the government of the Russian Federation, has been routinely characterized by various European politicians as the equivalent to the lunatic ravings of...

The Abuse of the Fourteenth Amendment

Libertarians and conservatives have never achieved widespread consensus regarding issues of federalism in American jurisprudence. The gridlock has to do with competing ideas about the proper role of the federal judiciary in protecting and preserving individual rights....

God Bless This Stress

The human body needs some stressors, and everything organic and complex communicates with the environment via stressors.—Nassim Nicholas Taleb Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, is back with a new book: Antifragile: Things that Gain...