Founding Fathers
George Washington’s First Final Farewell
A generation after George Washington’s Christmastime farewell to his troops and to the Congress who commissioned him in 1775, Clement Clarke Moore penned the iconic poem he called “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” but known to most as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”...
Want War? You Pay for It!
James Madison warned us about the costs of war. War comes with an extremely high price tag. According to the Cost of War Project by the Watson Institute at Brown University, the U.S. spent $2.26 trillion on the war in Afghanistan alone. That comes to over $300 million...
The Struggle for Ratification: Advocates and Opponents Debate Judicial Review (Part 1)
One of the most striking and unique and hotly debated aspects of the American system of government is judicial review. Where precisely does this doctrine arise from? Technically, from Article III, § 2, Clause 1: The Judicial power shall extend to all cases in Law and...
Benjamin Franklin on “Doing Good to the Poor”
The federal government lacks any legitimate constitutional authority to establish welfare programs for the poor. Not only that, the federal welfare system fails in its promise to “help the poor” out of poverty. Supporters of the expansive federal welfare...