We The People

from Kevin Williamson at The Dispatch, Curb Your Enthusiasm: (Likely firewalled if you are not a subscriber, and I encourage you to subscribe.  Jonah Goldberg has created a wonderful new resource. Both Goldberg and Williamson used to be must reads at National Review ,...

An Excess of Democracy

Madison responded to Jefferson in October 1788. He denied that he had ever really opposed a bill of rights; he just didn’t think such “parchment barriers” were very important. He conceded rather halfheartedly that a bill of rights “might be of use, and if properly...

A Carefully Constructed Republic

From National Review by Adam Carrington, Jamelle Bouie Is Wrong about the Constitution: Thus, when Bouie rebuts those who claim that we are a republic by defining democracy itself as representative, not direct, government, he wins a skirmish only to lose the greater...

The Sanctuary of the Courts

The progressive critique of the principles underlying the original American understanding of rights paved the way for an attack on those rights in practice. Progressives called for significant changes both to political institutions and to national policy that were...

The Inorganic Constitution

Ronald Pestritto has a wonderful new book, America Transformed, with a comprehensive look at the roots of progressivism and its legacy.  A central part of his thesis is the progressive rejection of the constitutional principles embedded by the framers. For Wilson, the...