Constitution
Insights into the Constitution from English Social History
If you want to understand the Constitution, you should know something of the social context that produced it. Very useful for this purpose are the chapters on the 17th and 18th century in George Macaulay Trevelyan’s book, English Social History: A Survey of Six...
Little Known Episode in U.S. History Explains Executive War Powers
Within five years of the publishing of The Federalist papers (and four years of the ratification by the states of the Constitution), the co-authors of those seminal and influential essays on American political theory and constitutional interpretation were back at...
Tench Coxe: Originalism and the Founders’ Understanding of the Constitution
“Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American.” If he’s even remembered at all today, people today generally look at Tench Coxe as the founder who forcefully advocated for the natural right to keep and bear arms....
The Day the Philadelphia Convention Narrowly Avoided Permanent Adjournment
“Something must be done, or we shall disappoint not only America, but the whole world…. We must make concessions on both sides. Without these, the constitutions of the several states would never have been formed.” -Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, July 2, 1787 W....