by Henry Oliner | Jul 17, 2015 | History, Politics
From the progressive standpoint, the Framers had not so much erred in their efforts as subsequent events had rendered their formulations moot. Madison had been particularly worried about a fractious majority violating the public good or minority rights for selfish...
by Henry Oliner | Jul 10, 2015 | History, Politics
All of this helps us understand how the spoils system became rampant in the nineteenth century. The resources required to win a nationwide presidential election were too massive for parties to raise on their own, and so they turned to the public treasury for partisan...
by Henry Oliner | Jun 27, 2015 | History, Politics
For Madison, the ultimate goal of the new government was to balance different factions and produce public policy that was only in the public interest; for Hamilton, the goal was a vigorous government to spur the country on to national greatness. Insofar as these views...
by Henry Oliner | Jun 25, 2015 | Politics
To be clear, the problem is not with expansive governmental powers per se. Rather, it has to do with the institutions of government that exercise those powers. Specifically, we use eighteenth century institutions, originally meant to do much less, to exercise...
by Henry Oliner | Jun 19, 2015 | Politics
The country has increasingly demanded nationalistic authority for the government, but has refused to abandon the parochialism inherent to the original design. Indeed, Americans are wont to celebrate the contradiction: we unabashedly demand that our government exercise...
