All Posts Tagged With: "James Madison"

James 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 | | 1 comment | Continued

Weapon of Mass Distraction

In 1795 James Madison wrote: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the [...]

1Sep2002 | | 0 comments | Continued

Nullification: The Jeffersonian Brake on Government

Thinkers in the classical-liberal tradition, to the extent that they support a coercive state at all, speak routinely of the importance of keeping government strictly limited. To that end, the United States has a written Constitution, which enumerates the relatively brief list of tasks entrusted to the federal government and whose Tenth Amendment makes clear [...]

1Mar2002 | | 1 comment | Continued

Capital Letters

The State of the Comic Book To the Editor: I enjoyed Raymond Keating’s article on comic books in the May 2001 issue of Ideas on Liberty. I was surprised to see something like this covered in the magazine, and he did the topic justice. His comments on Captain America were particularly enlightening, since I had [...]

1Sep2001 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Rule of Law and Freedom in Emerging Democracies: A Madisonian Perspective

James Dorn is vice president for academic affairs at the Cato Institute. The collapse of communism in 1989 in Eastern and Central Europe, and the fall of the Soviet Union two years later, have increased the number of democracies in the world to a total of 120. Of those, however, only 85 are classified as [...]

1Aug2001 | | 0 comments | Continued

Freedom of Education: A Civil Liberty

Barry Loberfeld is a freelance writer. One of the most amazing things about the many organizations and individuals who designate themselves “civil libertarians” (with the ACLU, naturally, being the most emblematic) is the utter absence of educational liberty from their shared agenda. It’s not even a blip on their screen. Why? Because it’s not explicitly [...]

1Aug2001 | | 2 comments | 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

American Compact: James Madison and the Problem of Founding

At the time of independence, virtually all Americans believed, with the authors of the Declaration of Independence, that government derives its “just powers from the consent of the governed.” Yet the principle of popular sovereignty does not indicate how a people can be organized so that they may exercise their right to establish new government. [...]

1Sep2000 | | 0 comments | Continued

Constitutional Intentions

A question frequently arises in disputes about how to interpret the U.S. Constitution: What was the intention of those who framed the document? This question contains an invalid assumption. It assumes that those who drafted the Constitution at the 1787 convention and those involved in the subsequent debates were of one mind and intent. In [...]

1Jun2000 | | 3 comments | Continued

Keeping the People’s Liberties

The title of this work comes from a 1792 essay by James Madison, “Who Are the Best Keepers of the People’s Liberties?” How best to secure the rights of people was a question that bore heavily on the founders and still bears heavily on us today. Wake Forest University professor John Dinan examines the success—and [...]

1Sep1999 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Pervasive Duty to Rescue

Mr. Kochan is an Adjunct Scholar with The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational organization headquartered in Midland, Michigan. As individuals, Americans may choose to act as Good Samaritans and come to the aid of those in need, but are not legally obligated to do so. Traditionally under American law, no general [...]

1Jun1997 | | 0 comments | Continued

Book Review: The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic by Lance Banning

Cornell University Press • 1995 • 543 pages • $35.00 Mr. Watkins is assistant editor of The Freeman. Historians have painted James Madison as a young centralizer and nationalist who later defected to the philosophy of states’ rights and strict construction of the Constitution. Madison was also accused of philosophical apostasy by his contemporaries. Alexander [...]

1Jan1997 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic

Mr. Watkins is assistant editor of The Freeman. Historians have painted James Madison as a young centralizer and nationalist who later defected to the philosophy of states’ rights and strict construction of the Constitution. Madison was also accused of philosophical apostasy by his contemporaries. Alexander Hamilton, his collaborator on The Federalist, bitterly complained that after [...]

1Apr1996 | | 0 comments | Continued

James Madison-Checks and Balances to Limit Government Power

James Madison didn’t originate the idea of checks and balances for limiting government power, but he helped push it farther than anyone else before or since. Previous political thinkers, citing British experience, had talked about checks and balances with a monarch in the mix, but Madison helped apply the principle to a republic. Contrary to such respected thinkers as Baron de Montesquieu, Madison insisted checks and balances could help protect liberty in a large republic.

1Mar1996 | | 5 comments | Continued

War and Liberty in American History

Mr. Riddle teaches American History at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. This essay is based on excerpts from remarks presented at a FEE summer seminar in Irvington-on-Hudson, August 14, 1995. Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every [...]

1Feb1996 | | 0 comments | Continued

Freedom: An Endangered Species

Mr. Greenslade lives in Walnut Creek, California. The recent complaint filed against Taiwanese immigrant Taung Ming-Lin and his corporation Wang Lin, Inc., for alleged violations of the federal Endangered Species Act is another example of the federal government usurping its powers. Ming-Lin’s company is charged, in a complaint filed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife [...]

1Sep1995 | | 0 comments | Continued
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