Constitution Day, September 17

Celebrate Constitution Day tomorrow by buying and reading America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited. Dedicated to the constitutionalists of all parties, the book challenges the assumption that the Constitution was a landmark in the struggle for liberty. Instead, I argue it was the product of a counter-revolution, a setback for the radicalism represented by America’s break with the British empire. Drawing on careful, credible historical scholarship and contemporary political analysis, I suggest that this counter-revolution was the work of conservatives who sought a nation of “power, consequence, and grandeur.” America’s Counter-Revolution makes a persuasive case that the Constitution was a victory not for liberty but for the agendas and interests of a militaristic, aristocratic, privilege-seeking ruling class. 

Get yours today!

How'd That Work Out?

The early American radicals insisted on decentralization of power, which required a weak national government and sovereign states. The early American conservative aristocrats said what they had in mind was even better: a strong national government, stretched over a vast territory, with three branches, which would check and balance one another, and weak states.

How'd that work out?

Good July 4 Reading

Independence Day Propaganda by Anthony Gregory

How to Celebrate July 4

If what we were taught about the American Revolution is right, then the most fitting way to celebrate July 4 would be to dismantle the American Empire and shrink (abolish would be preferable) the domestic State. On the other hand, if the purpose was to create the American Empire and a powerful State run by Americans, well then, never mind.

TGIF: Congress Declares Independence

What a difference a year can make. On July 6, 1775, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, issued the Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms. Significantly, the document declared, "We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain establishing independent states."

The rest of TGIF is here.

Happy Independence Day!

On this day in 1776, the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution of independence, submitted by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, declaring that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and Independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

Two days later, July 4, the Congress approved a document, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, intended to explain why independence was proper and necessary. We call that document the Declaration of Independence.