“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on Jan. 6, 1706, the youngest son among a tradesman’s 15 children by two successive wives. He had two years of formal education. At the age of 12 he was apprenticed to his older brother James, a printer. Five years later, he ran...
A Republic, if you can keep it. We’ve all heard this phrase – it’s almost legendary. People have used it in campaigns, slogans, as a book title, in support or against all kinds of things. First of all, considering the fact that we live under the largest...
Benjamin Franklin’s famous one-liner about the relationship between liberty and safety has intrigued me since I first read it in high school. Why would anyone sacrifice personal liberty? And how does that sacrifice equate to temporary safety? When Franklin...
On June 2, 1787, Benjamin Franklin delivered a speech at the Philadelphia Convention opposing a provision in the proposed Constitution to pay the president a salary. The speech reveals some important aspects of human nature that we should keep in mind today. Franklin...
Most people recognize that the Constitution evolved out of the Articles of Confederation. But the Articles were also part of a long evolution in political thought and constitutionalism that started long before the colonies’ quest for independence. An important...