Constitution
Federal Farmer: A Confederated Republic or Consolidation?
During the Constitution’s ratification process, there was little to no debate about the type of government desired. Whether antifederalist or federalist, both sides fundamentally advocated for a federal republic with a general government exercising expressly delegated...
Federal Farmer Makes his Case for the Tenth Amendment
In one of his later essays, the Federal Farmer made a strong case for what eventually became the Tenth Amendment. A major contention among anti-federalists and other skeptics of the proposed Constitution revolved around the limits on federal power. In particular,...
War and the Constitution
Can the president fight any war he wishes? Can Congress fund any war it chooses? Are there constitutional and legal requirements that must first be met before war is waged? Can the United States legally attack an ally? These questions should be front and center in a...
The ideas that formed the Constitution: Tacitus
The authors discussed in this series impacted the Constitution both directly and indirectly. Citations to the authors by participants in the constitutional debates of 1787–1790 are evidence of direct influence. Indirect influence occurred in at least two ways. First,...