Happy Constitution Day!

On this Constitution Day, may I modestly suggest the perfect gift for your loved ones?

Jeff Tucker Interviews Me about "America's Counter-Revolution

Watch This Space

This morning I put the finishing touches on my book America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited. Details to follow...

How Well Does the Constitution Protect Liberty?

I was a recent guest on Libertarianism.org's podcast series Free Thoughts with Aaron Powell and Trevor Burrus. Have a listen: "How Well Does the Constitution Protect Liberty?"

TGIF: The Constitution and the Standing Army

The U.S. Constitution can reasonably be seen as a massive tax and mercantilist trade-promotion program. However, there's a third leg to this stool. It was a national-security program as well -- almost a proto-PATRIOT Act. Indeed, these three elements formed an integrated project: it gave the new central government independent power to raise revenue by taxing individuals directly and to establish an army and navy in order to advance, by force if necessary, American trade. This, I submit, was not exactly a libertarian project. It let a terrifying genie out of the bottle ostensibly in order to contain it. Or, as James Madison put it, "You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."

TGIF: The Bill of Rights Revisited

Drawing on work by historian Gordon S. Wood, I recently suggested that we see the U.S. Constitution not as a landmark in the struggle for liberty, but rather as a move to introduce elements of monarchy and aristocracy into an American political system that had become too democratic -- among white males with property -- for America's upper crust. As Wood wrote in Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic: 1789-1815, "Benjamin Rush [a signer of the Declaration of Independence] described the new government in 1790 as one 'which unites with the vigor of monarchy and the stability of aristocracy all the freedom of a simple republic.'" But is that union actually coherent?

TGIF: The Constitution Revisited

I am mystified that so many libertarians still see the U.S. Constitution as a landmark achievement in the struggle for liberty. On principle alone, they should have become wary in time. A document that is adored at virtually every position in the political firmament should arouse suspicion among libertarians.

From Articles of Confederation to Constitution

My July FFF webinar was titled "From Articles of Confederation to Constitution." Here's the audio.

Freedom Is at Hand!

Reported by ABC News, Dec. 30:

The Republican leadership presented a summary of the new rules [House] Wednesday morning, revealing a number of strict -- and in a few cases unprecedented -- changes to the way Congress will be run. To underscore their point, they will kick off their reign as the majority by doing something that remarkably has never been done before: They will read the Constitution, all 4,543 words of it, including all 27 amendments, aloud on the chamber floor....
Keeping with the theme, Republicans will also require every new bill presented on the House floor to cite which article in the Constitution authorizes the enacting of such legislation, a nod to the Tea Party, which made the Constitution a tenant of its movement throughout the midterm election cycle.

Antifederalists were reported to be spinning in their graves.

TGIF: Anti-Federalists Vindicated

If the Antifederalists were still on the scene today, they might be saying — as they would have been saying right along — “Told you so.”

The full TGIF is here.