The Preamble is the Least Important Part of the Constitution
By: Mike Maharrey Most people are familiar with the Constitution’s preamble. A lot of people were required to memorize it in school. But while the preamble is arguably the best-known part ...
Read more.Constituting Unity
by Yuval Levin We live in an age of animosity. Americans are polarized, and often bitterly divided. And the institutions of our public life seem only to exacerbate our discord. ...
Read more.This Week at the Constitutional Convention of 1787: First Draft of Constitution Presented to Delegates
By: Joe Wolverton, II This was a big week in 1787. The delegates at the Constitutional Convention gathered in Philadelphia finally received printed copies of the first draft of what would ...
Read more.America isn’t “One Nation” and that Matters
By: Mike Maharrey The Pledge of Allegiance is wrong. These United States are not “one nation, indivisible.” They are a federation. This may seem like semantical nitpicking, but it is an ...
Read more.Unraveling the “One Nation” Myth
By: Mike Maharrey You’ve been lied to. America is not “one nation.” I know this feels shocking. You’ve proclaimed the United States of America is “one nation, under God, indivisible” your ...
Read more.The ideas that formed the Constitution: Public Education
By: Rob Natelson This is the last in the series on “The Ideas That Formed the Constitution.” It applies the series’ lessons to how we educate our young. The U.S. Constitution ...
Read more.Benjamin Franklin Speech Exposes the Inherent Danger of Power and Money
By: Mike Maharrey On June 2, 1787, Benjamin Franklin delivered a speech at the Philadelphia Convention opposing a provision in the proposed Constitution to pay the president a salary. The speech ...
Read more.The Militia vs. The Standing Army: Does the Distinction Matter?
By: TJ Martinell Within the debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment, a lot of attention gets paid to the phrase “well-regulated militia.” Most of the time, the focus is ...
Read more.The First Amendment’s Wall of Separation
By: Mike Maharrey In an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their ...
Read more.Refuting the “Second Amendment Protected Slavery” Argument Part II: The Virginia Ratifying Convention
By: TJ Martinell Note: This is the second in a three-part series examining a pro-slavery interpretation of the Second Amendment that persists to this day. You can read part 1 HERE. The ...
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