Constitutional Genealogy: The New England Confederation of 1643
By: Mike Maharrey The foundational ideas underlying the Constitution took root long before the founders drafted the document. In fact, they began to take root in the earliest days of American ...
Read more.
The Prophetic Anti-Federalist Warnings About Constitutional Taxing Power
By: Bob Fiedler In June 1794 the United States Congress passed a tax on the ownership of carriages. The tax called for a levy, “Upon all carriages for the conveyance of ...
Read more.
Whose Job is it to Keep the Feds in Line?
By: Michael Boldin For the federal government to take even a “single step” beyond the limits of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “is to take possession of a boundless field of power, ...
Read more.
A Tale of Two Courts
By: Mike Maharrey I recently appeared on It’s Too Late with Alan Mosley to discuss the recent Supreme Court decisions. We not only delve into some of the specifics of the ...
Read more.
The Constitution isn’t Absolute?
By: Mike Maharrey Arguing that “high-caliber” weapons should be federally banned, President Joe Biden claimed, “Remember, the Constitution was never absolute.” Biden was merely advancing the popular notion of a “living breathing ...
Read more.
How to Interpret the Constitution, and How Not to
By: TJ Martinell How does one properly interpret the U.S. Constitution? Is originalism just a codeword used by “conservatives” to interpret it in the same manner as “liberals” view it as ...
Read more.
Setting a Foundation: The Virginia Declaration of Rights
By: Mike Maharrey On June 12, 1776, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed the Virginia Declaration of Rights. It is arguably the most important founding document that most people have never heard ...
Read more.
The First Salvo in the Ratification Debates: James Wilson’s State House Speech
By: Bob Fiedler While most people today think of the Federalist Papers as the leading defense of the Constitution’s original meaning, it was actually a speech by James Wilson that had a far ...
Read more.
Lysander Spooner’s Strategy to Stop Unconstitutional Acts
By: Mike Maharrey Resist. That was Lysander Spooner’s strategy to stop unconstitutional acts that was very much in line with James Madison and other prominent founders. Spooner was a prominent 19th-century ...
Read more.
Patrick Henry Demands a Bill of Rights
By: TJ Martinell On June 7, 1788, Patrick Henry delivered one of many long speeches at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, demanding the inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the proposed U.S. Constitution ...
Read more.