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Lab Rat America
As the Democratic convention rhetoric solidifies into cigarette ash and economic performance figures assail us, one line from President Obama’s speech should continue to intrigue and horrify us....
View ArticleWhy You Can’t Understand the Constitution Without the Common Law
Why, in a country with a written Constitution and a founding document (the Declaration of Independence) that is grounded on natural right, should we pay attention to the common law? Wrongly...
View ArticleAlexander Hamilton: A Martyr for Liberty?
Eight days after his notorious June 18 speech at the Constitutional Convention where he recommended an executive and senate to serve during good behavior, potentially for life, Alexander Hamilton rose...
View ArticleDebating the Terms of the American Founding
Eleven insightful contemporary scholars of American political thought create a dialogue concerning the natural rights origins of America and its Progressive transformation. The first five essays...
View ArticleThe Journey of Indefinite Government
So what is “liberalism” today? Is it a mere grab-bag of miscellaneous policy preferences, or some coherent thing, with an intelligible cause and purpose? In an ambitious project, historians Donald T....
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The Propriety and Necessity of Natural Law to Originalism
It is frequently alleged or assumed that a tension exists between natural-law theory and constitutional originalism. The tension is undeniable if originalism is a naked form of democratic...
View ArticleNatural Law, Natural Rights, and the Law of Freedom
It is a great honor to be asked to comment on Gerald Russello’s excellent piece. A man whose scholarship and wisdom is as high as his integrity is deep, Russello has pioneered much in his own writing...
View ArticleThe Right against America
Robert Nisbet was certainly a conservative theorist of some prominence, as Mike Rappaport indicates. Mike was picking up on Steve Hayward’s post, which called to task today’s “quantum conservatism” for...
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The Real America
Mary Ann Glendon Thanks to Greg Weiner (and the commenters) for taking on my original piece, which has gathered far more attention than I had anticipated. Greg argues that, “It has become commonplace...
View ArticleSteven Eagle on Eminent Domain
Steven Eagle, George Mason University law school professor, appeared today on C-SPAN’s morning show (39 mins @ 34:50) discussing the origins of eminent domain and its drastic expansion prior to and...
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Obama as Originalist Orator
Much of President Obama’s speech commemorating the 1963 civil rights March on Washington deserves praise–or at least admiration. Speaking from the Lincoln Memorial, he began by reciting the most famous...
View ArticleThe Conscience of a Madisonian Conservative
Nathaniel Peters’ review of Robert George’s Conscience and Its Enemies is an insightful introduction to the Princeton scholar the New York Times Magazine resident anthropologist of conservatives, David...
View ArticleThe Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left
This edition of Liberty Law Talk is with Yuval Levin, author of The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left. A 2013 Bradley Prize recipient, Levin connects us with the...
View ArticleNatural Rights and the Limited Government Model of the Constitution: A...
There is much to commend Professor Garry’s essay. He is eminently correct in saying that the Constitution contemplated a limited government. Whether it adhered to a “limited government model” is a...
View ArticleLimited Government and Individual Autonomy
Patrick Garry’s essay “The Constitution’s Structural Limits on Power Should Be the Focus of the Bill of Rights” contains many valuable insights. In particular, it re-affirms the proposition – lost for...
View ArticlePatrick Garry’s Reply to Responders
I am honored to be a part of this debate on the Bill of Rights with such accomplished and knowledgeable scholars. The three responding essays by Dr. Bowling, Professor Erler and Professor Ramsey...
View ArticleThe Extinction of American Liberty? Ted McAllister responds:
Lamentably, I find myself in general agreement with the thoughtful commentaries on my essay by the three respondents, C. Bradley Thompson, Steven Grosby, and William Dennis. This is not to say that...
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This Republic of Federalism
Timothy Sandefur’s The Conscience of the Constitution contributes to the debate over the best way to limit the powers of the United States government in order to secure liberty. Sandefur, a lawyer and...
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The Declaration’s Grievances and the Constitution
In a historically detailed review of Timothy Sandefur’s new book entitled The Conscience of the Constitution, Adam Tate raises the practice of federalism as a principled method that representatives...
View ArticleLiberalism’s Tragic Evolution
This book gives both friends and critics of the classical liberal tradition much to think about. Its thoughtful, closely reasoned account of liberalism from Locke to the present is written not in...
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