Archive for Joseph R. Stromberg

Joseph Stromberg is an independent historian and writer living in northern Georgia .

The Sovereign Presidency: Is This What the Framers Had in Mind?

American government under the Constitution was supposedly meant to work as follows: Congress, staying within delegated powers and the Bill of Rights, passes laws; the president executes the laws; and the courts sort out ensuing wrangles. This plan ran aground rather early—the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, for example—which raises at least two possibilities: 1) [...]

1Jan2007 | | 9 comments | Continued

Nothing to Learn from the Antifederalists? It Just Ain’t So!

Joseph Stromberg is a historian and freelance writer. According to Paul Greenberg, writing in the Washington Times in late January, the dreaded Antifederalists and their Articles of Confederation are making a comeback. In particular, these miscreants dare to question executive power. He writes with patriotic horror—a horror that assumes as self-evident a partisan reading of [...]

1Jun2006 | | 22 comments | Continued

On Misplaced Concreteness in Social Theory

The following piece will not be as abstruse as its title suggests. Rather, it results from the simple observation that, time and time again, some harmful outcome or process commonly attributed to the everyday workings of the market economy actually does exist, but it exists in the realm of the government and politics. Politicians and [...]

1May2006 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Claims for Total War Revisited

According to the numerous defenders of Total War, no means of breaking an enemy’s will can be forsworn under the conditions of modern warfare. The enemy includes every member of the “enemy society,” regardless of age, gender, occupation, etc. Any vestiges of eighteenth- or nineteenth-century practices that aimed at limiting the destructiveness of war and [...]

1Dec2002 | | 1 comment | Continued

The Return of Activist Government?

In the New York Times of December 13, 2001, John D. Donahue joins the crowd that is presently arguing—or hoping—that the events of September 11, 2001, have cleared a path for the “revival” of big, all-knowing government. I do not wish to argue, here, why that might be undesirable. I do contest Donahue’s historical construction [...]

1May2002 | | 0 comments | Continued

When in the Course of Human Events: The Case for Southern Secession by Charles Adams

Rowman & Littlefield · 2000 · 272 pages · $24.95 Reviewed by Joseph R. Stromberg Some reviewers have had a hard time with the present book. They imagine that there is a single historical thesis therein, one subject to definitive proof or refutation. In this, I believe they are mistaken. Instead, what we have here [...]

1Dec2001 | | 1 comment | Continued

A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government by Garry Wills

Simon & Schuster • 1999 • 365 pages • $25.00 Professor Garry Wills loves government. Perhaps one day he will tell us if he believes in any substantive limitations on government at all. Wills’s long-standing love of government can be seen in “The Convenient State,” an essay he wrote when he was his own brand [...]

1Mar2001 | | 1 comment | Continued

After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State

Americans have given up freedom and self-government for a mess of pottage. Modern “liberalism,” argues political science professor Paul Gottfried in his insightful new book, rests on a “patricide” of the older liberalism. Whereas liberalism and democracy were once opposed concepts, they are now conflated, to the great detriment of the former. Meanwhile, “democracy,” which [...]

1Oct2000 | | 0 comments | Continued

Mere Isolationism: The Foreign Policy of the Old Right

One of the “lost causes” to which libertarians are attached—and one of the most important—is that of the “isolationist” Old Right. As used by the late Murray Rothbard, among others, the term “Old Right” refers to a loose coalition opposed to the New Deal in both its domestic and foreign aspects. While not following a [...]

1Feb2000 | | 0 comments | Continued

Noah Smithwick: Pioneer Texan and Monetary Critic

The lively and colorful memoirs of Noah Smithwick, nonagenarian, ex-North Carolinian, early Texas pioneer, and eventual Californian, take us back to a time when Americans could grasp essential truths about the nature of money. His book, The Evolution of a State or Recollections of Old Texas Days, reflects the original value system of the mobile and ambitious Americans of the early nineteenth century.

1Jul1999 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Second Amendment in the Light of American Republicanism

The “transforming” ideology of America’s revolutionary period saw the chief conflict in society as one between liberty and power. That ideology synthesized themes from several sources.[1] Given the differing origins and jumping-off points of classical liberalism and classical republicanism (the two most important elements), the American “synthesis” might be expected to undergo some unraveling when up against the harder problems of political life.

1Jun1999 | | 4 comments | Continued

Tensions in Early American Political Thought

According to the eminent historian of political thought J.G.A. Pocock, republican theory (or “civic humanism”) was the most significant current of eighteenth-century English and American political philosophy. In the form of “country ideology,” republicanism gave “left” and “right” critics of government policies a framework and believable rhetoric for their arguments.

1May1999 | | 0 comments | Continued
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