The Origin of the Power to Lay and Collect Taxes and Its Limits
How did the following clause of the Constitution–Article I, Section 8, clause 1— come into being? “The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the...
View ArticleThe Tale of Two Revolutions and Two Constitutions
The closing of the XXX Olympic Games, in both French and English, reminds me of Charles Dickens who in the nineteenth century wrote famously about the Tale of Two Cities—Paris and London–separated by a...
View ArticleFederalism, Congressionalism, and an Appeal For a Renewed Constitutional...
Why are we still talking about federalism in 2012? Wasn’t it mortally wounded with the passage of the 16th and the 17th Amendments? At least, that is what I hear a lot of Conservatives moaning about....
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Beware the Categorical Trap
Arriving at Ellis Island Conservatives are disappointed and are searching for reasons for the disappointing electoral outcome. In whom or what are they disappointed? A tempting approach is to adopt...
View ArticleAn Eternal Introduction
When I read the preface, I thought: What a great story awaits the reader. The authors of The Constitution: An Introduction, Michael Stokes Paulsen and Luke Paulsen, father and son, spent nine summer...
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What Are the Antifederalists to Us?
Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America’s First Constitution presents us with a paradox. Author William J. Watkins, Jr. recognizes, on the one hand, that we cannot get...
View ArticleThe Project to Understand America
It’s hard to love an ugly founding. Was America ill-founded, well-founded, even incompletely founded? Each of these judgments captures some essential part of the American story. Choose a date when the...
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