The Founding Fathers’ Guide to the Constitution
The Constitution is there. It can still be known and understood by honest citizens.
Recognizing a Forgotten Founder
When bypassing those lesser-known founders, we view the past through a distorted lens. Troy Kickler gives us a view of Hugh Williamson…
Imagining Freedom
We Americans have become so conditioned to accept whatever our government throws at us in the name of “safety†that we have completely forgotten what it is to live free and be secure in our persons.
Society is a Blessing, Government an Evil
Tom Paine: “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one”
Trading freedom for safety’s illusion
Modern American’s seem to have lost sight of essential truths clear to the country’s founders more than 200 years ago.
The Founders Wanted Big Government? I Object.
Were the Framers “nationalists†who all along, despite their own words to the contrary, secretly intended to establish in the original Constitution a federal leviathan?
No Longer Will We Stand Idly By
Isn’t it incredible that, despite all the historical evidence to the contrary, that anyone can still believe that the founders would’ve fought a long, cruel, bloody war just to exchange one central, overpowering government for another?
Jefferson’s Judicial Blunders
When Jefferson ran for president in 1800, he made it clear that he supported strict construction, original intent jurisprudence, federalism, and states’ rights
The Arbitrary Will of Vindictive Tyrants
Sam Adams on his birthday: “If we love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude…”
Jefferson, State Sovereignty, and the Constitution
Part of Jefferson’s defense of the sovereignty of the several states concerns the right implicit in that status to legislate in matters that “concern themselves alone.â€
A Safeguard Against Federal Abuse
In 1830, when South Carolina politicians were arguing for “nullification†of a federal tariff they viewed as unconstitutional, the elderly James Madison penned a public response.
Even those who disagreed agreed on federalism
Maintaining government over the daily concerns of people at the lowest level possible was necessary for self-government to thrive and kingly government to have no place in the future of the United States.
The Blessings of Liberty for our Posterity
Are we securing the blessing of liberty or the chains of economic servitude?
Was Thomas Jefferson a Great President?
One’s answer to that question depends on how one defines “greatness.”
We Were Warned
The celebration of our founders’ 1776 revolt against King George III and the English Parliament is over. Let’s reflect how the founders might judge today’s Americans and how today’s Americans might judge them.
The Founding Fathers Rejected Democracy
The Constitution, as designed, is the mechanism to ensure we stay a Republic. We must demand from our leaders a strict adherence to that document in order to preserve our liberty, and that of future generations.
A Tavern in 1791
Barack Obama and other supporters of unlimited federal power would like us to believe that we can’t uncover the Constitution’s original meaning. In essence, they’re telling us that we don’t have a Constitution at all. Rob Natelson’s new book, The Original Constitution, shows us that such a view is little more than….a crock.
Tom Paine, Liberty’s Hated Torchbearer
As the 18th century’s most influential political pamphleteer, Paine’s reputation was born with the American Revolution he was largely responsible for creating, and he wanted to spend his last years among people with whom he shared a passion for liberty.
Nullifying Federal Tyranny
Those who hope to revive a constitutional role for the States as counters to the present U.S. Empire, must hope to make the States once more into self-conscious, viable polities who have the political will to enact nullification and stand by it.
The Individual and the Tenth
Most discussions of the Tenth Amendment center around using the state legislature to enforce it when the Supreme Court fails to do so. In that situation, the state legislature declares a law null and void within the state’s borders. In this posting, we’ll focus on another historic enforcement mechanism.
Interposition, Nullification and the Political Thought of James Madison
In honor of James Madison’s birthday, March 16, 1751, read Kevin Gutzman’s groundbreaking study of our 4th president’s political thought.
Small Things Grow Great by Concord
John Dickinson, the “penman of the Revolution,” on the anniversary of his death – read the first of his famous “Letters from a Farmer.”
