Forged out of a century and a half struggle against religious persecution in the colonies, the American constitutional heritage codified an innovative break from centuries of Western practice. Both the First Amendment and state constitutional provisions bar religious establishments and protect religious free exercise from government infringement. These two provisions work in tandem. Freed from […]
Latest Articles
An Old Controversy: Marshall, Whitaker, and Marbury V. Madison
While giving a campaign interview in 2014, Matthew Whitaker, at the time a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in the state of Iowa, was asked to name the worst Supreme Court decisions in history. Marbury v. Madison (1803) immediately came to Whitaker’s mind. “There are so many (bad rulings),” Whitaker told his interviewer. “I would […]
Reinterpreting the Separation of Powers
With dysfunction the current watchword in American politics, the public is naturally looking for solutions. The checks and balances offered by three coequal branches of government are the remedy most frequently advanced for this task. But we should exercise caution in endorsing this idea as a cure for our political ills. While there is no […]
Gerald Ford and the Persistence of Constitutional Power
It is common for scholars to distinguish between a ‘traditional presidency’ that existed in the 18th and 19th Centuries and a ‘modern presidency’ that emerged in the mid-20th Century. Proponents of this distinction see the presidency created by the Constitution as fundamentally weak. The modern presidency, by contrast, is portrayed as stronger and able to […]
Forged By Crisis
A Nation Forged by Crisis (2018, Basic Books) tells the history of the United States through the greatest periods of crisis in each century of its existence. It opens with the 18th Century Revolution and covers the Civil War, Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. These periods of crisis forever altered the […]
