All Posts Tagged With: "James Madison"
Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Vision of History
Over a hundred years ago, on August 31, 1910, Teddy Roosevelt gave his famous “New Nationalism” speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. In that speech the former president projected his vision for how the federal government could regulate the American economy. He defended the government’s expansion during his presidency and suggested new ways that it could promote [...]
22Sep2010 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 8 comments | ContinuedA Contemptible Congress and a Derelict Court
What can Congress do that the Supreme Court would find unconstitutional? Or, what can Congress do that a president would veto as unconstitutional? It is not much exaggeration to say that Congress can do whatever it can muster a majority vote for, whether it is constitutional or not. The members only have to worry about [...]
24Feb2010 | Walter E. Williams | 5 comments | ContinuedThe Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn’t): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game
Alvin Felzenberg, like many thoughtful scholars, has a beef with the way historians have evaluated American presidents. Ever since 1948, the year of the first Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. poll, historians have ranked American presidents and published the results. In the case of Schlesinger’s poll, a select group of historians ranked all presidents (except for those [...]
24Apr2009 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Holiday That Isn’t
I know it’s only October, but that’s late enough in the year for most people to have already begun thinking of the holidays just around the corner. We will each observe the traditional ones according to our personal wishes—a precious right won for us by past and present patriots. Allow me to advise you, however, [...]
1Oct2008 | Lawrence W. Reed | Comments Off | ContinuedThe Constitutional Republicanism of John Taylor of Caroline
“Great power often corrupts virtue; it invariably renders vice more malignant . . . . In proportion as the powers of government increase, both its own character and that of the people becomes worse.” —John Taylor of Caroline, 1814 John Taylor of Caroline has a secure place in the history of American political thought. Charles [...]
1May2008 | Joseph R. Stromberg | 0 comments | ContinuedMadison’s Veto Sets a Precedent
Today, when a president looks at a spending bill that has passed Congress, he typically asks, “How will this help my party gain votes?” and “What interest groups will this bring to my side?” Sometimes, when modern presidents are more philosophical, they ask, “Will this spending help the economy, or advance the nation’s interests?” Our [...]
1Jan2008 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Constitution Within
I’ve argued previously that a free society depends ultimately on people having a proper sense of just conduct. This means more than the words they recite or put on parchment. Most crucial is how they act and expect others, such as those in the government, to act. For this reason it is futile to put [...]
1Sep2007 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | ContinuedDemocracy or Republic?
Walter Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University. How often do we hear the claim that our nation is a democracy? Was a democratic form of government the vision of the Founders? As it turns out, the word democracy appears nowhere in the two most fundamental founding documents [...]
1Jun2007 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | ContinuedFree Men for Better Job Performance ~ Part I
American industry and its managements have been the world’s leaders in management techniques and in productive efficiency. However, there are signs that this leadership may be slipping. Most companies are experiencing Parkinsonism in a mild if not severe form. Decentralization and other techniques have neglected the consideration of individual employees and their ownership and control of the faculties for which they were employed.
1Jun2007 | C.L. Dickinson | 1 comment | ContinuedConstitution Day
On September 17, 1787, 39 men signed the U.S. Constitution. Each year since 2004 we have celebrated Constitution Day as a result of legislation, fathered by Senator Robert Byrd, that requires federal agencies and every school that receives federal funds, including universities, to have some kind of program on the Constitution. I cannot think of [...]
1Nov2006 | Walter E. Williams | 7 comments | ContinuedPresidents and Poverty
Conventional wisdom holds that fighting poverty
has only lately been a concern of American
presidents, and that before Franklin Roosevelt
it was hardly a concern at all. This stubborn error
persists.
The Republic of West Florida: Freedom Fight or Land Grab?
Probably not one American in a hundred knows anything about the short-lived Republic of West Florida (1810). At first glance it might seem to have sprung from a worthy fight for self-government and independence from Spain. On closer inspection, however, this venture, born of low-level filibuster and high-level intrigue, illustrates the same ingrained American propensity [...]
1Jun2005 | Robert Higgs | 2 comments | ContinuedParting Company Is an Option
My last essay in The Freeman, “How Did We Get Here?” (March), provided clear evidence that Congress and the White House, as well as the courts, had vastly exceeded powers delegated to them by our Constitution. To have an appreciation for the magnitude of the usurpation, one need only read Federalist 45, where James Madison, [...]
1Jun2004 | Walter E. Williams | 1 comment | ContinuedOn "Elective Despotism"
In From Liberty to Democracy: The Transformation of American Government, Randall Holcombe writes: At the end of the twentieth century, Americans viewed their government very differently from the way it was viewed at the beginning of the nineteenth century. When the nation was founded, the federal government was viewed as a protector of individual rights, [...]
1Jan2004 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Progressive Income Tax in U.S. History
America’s founders rejected the income tax entirely, but when they spoke of taxes they recognized the need for uniformity and equal protection to all citizens. “[A]ll duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States,” reads the U.S. Constitution. And 80 years later, in the same spirit, the Fourteenth Amendment promised “equal protection [...]
1May2003 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 43 comments | ContinuedJames Madison: The Constitutional War President
Is it possible for a president to run a war effectively and obey the Constitution at the same time? Most historians would say no; after all, they persistently rank Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt as two of the nation’s greatest presidents. Lincoln and Roosevelt, as war presidents, centralized power, restricted liberty, and suspended key parts [...]
1Feb2003 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 0 comments | ContinuedJames Madison and the Simple Truths of Classical Liberalism
Perhaps it is because liberty is an intuitive concept and because the state is foreign to human nature that the precepts of (classical) liberalism can be described succinctly. Whatever the reason, one need only spend a matter of a few hours to read and understand the fundamental tenets of liberalism. Leonard Read aptly illustrates the [...]
1Jan2003 | Donald J. Kochan | 1 comment | Continued-
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