Free Republic

James Madison’s list of achievements did not happen by accident. We have much to learn from him.The following is adapted from the book Lessons in Liberty: Thirty Rules for Living from Ten Extraordinary Americans.Happy 273rd birthday to James Madison, the most egregiously underappreciated, sadly uncelebrated, and unfairly unsung American in the history of the United States.Consider the list of his towering achievements: Father of the American Constitution, formulator of American federalism, collaborator of The Federalist Papers, de facto doula of the Bill of Rights, and the fourth president of the United States.Yet there is no significant monument in Washington, D.C.,...

The Framers structured the Constitution to lead the new Republic to the ultimate end of slavery but were unable to set a time frame for its abolition. The story comes to us from James Madison’s classic Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787.The discussion on slavery at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 centered on two issues: 1. how to count the slaves in the apportionment of members in the popularly elected House of Representatives and; 2) setting an end date for the slave trade.Three distinct groups clashed on the assignment of House...

“The Federalist Papers” are a collection of 85 linked essays that explain the construction of the U.S. government and why it was built that way. The Papers are regarded as the best pipeline into understanding the U.S. Constitution and the founding principles of the government it would establish. I have endeavored here to present these essays, not as articles in a newspaper, but as you might have experienced them if you had sat in a comfortable tavern with a tankard in hand, and listened while these ardent men ranged in front of a friendly fireplace as they attempted to convince...

Taliban executions remind Americans to never give up arms they need for the primary reason the Constitution guarantees their right to have them.In Afghanistan the world is again seeing that radical Islam is an ideology premised on murdering non-believers and using that example to intimidate everyone else. Historically, the same has been true of leftism, when its adherents have achieved totalitarian control in a country.Leftists don’t have totalitarian control in America yet, so over the last few years they have mostly given us a heads-up about their desires by rolling out mock guillotines during their protests and riots, posing for...

In C. S. Lewis’s book, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," he describes a beautiful place (Narnia) under the spell of an evil character (the White Witch) – who symbolizes the Devil. Lewis writes of her that it was she who has made it "always winter, but never Christmas.""Always winter, but never Christmas" – what a great phrase to describe this world, without the loving, powerful, and positive influence of Jesus Christ.Could you imagine life in such an intolerable state where we had to endure the brutal conditions of the winter season – but never having Christmas to look...

The current situation over the Presidential Election of 2020 is the greatest test of our American system, which, if it doesn’t pass this test, our system of the Rule of Law, Checks and Balances, Freedom of Speech, and Democracy will be over. As the book, THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JAMES MADISON shows, our Founding was premised on the Christian appreciation of human weakness and sin, lust for power, corruption, and evil. Madison’s whole argument for Separation of Power and Pluralism in Federalist Paper #10 was that Freedom with Law and Justice could only be maintained if our Constitutional system checked...

On this day in 1787, “Publius” publishes an essay defending the Constitution in several New York newspapers. Publius?! Publius who? Most modern Americans have never heard of him. How unfortunate. The collection of works written by Publius was critical to the establishment of our Constitution. We’ve been living with our Constitution for so long that it can be easy to forget what things were like before. Perhaps you know that the Constitution was drafted in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787. But do you know what happened afterwards? Criticism began popping up almost immediately! Anonymous authors railed against the proposal...

Reflections on Constitution Day, 2018 On September 17, 1787, thirty-nine of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention got together for one final time, to sign the final document before sending it out to the states for ratification. (pictured: the Signing of the Constitution, by Louis S. Glanzman) There were 55 delegates in all, that momentous summer in Philadelphia, though all were rarely present at the same time. They had spent the summer debating both the big picture – what was to be the relationship between the federal government, the state governments, and the people? – and the small picture –...

Kashuv is a 16-year-old student survivor of the Valentine’s Day massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida. He is a Second Amendment advocate (and apparently a really knowledgeable one).Kyle Kashuv to Piers Morgan: Here’s what the Second Amendment stands for. (BPR screenshots) Kyle’s Twitter takedown started after Morgan falsely claimed the Second Amendment “was about arming people as part of a well regulated militia – not as a bunch of unregulated Rambos.” Kashuv responded by saying: “So you don’t bother to read Federalist Papers? Not your thing?”

The first essay in this three-part series about Noah Feldman’s “The Three Lives of James Madison” discussed how Madison’s theory of war powers was focused heavily on internal dangers to liberty and republican governance from war or standing armies. The allocation of the declare war power to Congress played only a small role in his theory. More important were structural checks on national-level military establishments, especially constitutional provisions that preserved state militias as the primary source of military manpower and that required Congress to fund—and then keep funding—a national army. Without an army, the president couldn’t fight a war regardless...

I have long believed two things about constitutional war powers, which my reading of Noah Feldman’s “The Three Lives of James Madison” largely confirmed. First, James Madison was brilliant and prescient about many things, but the strategy and politics of war were not among them. Second, modern constitutional critics of an imperial presidency place too much weight on the declare war clause—and especially Madison’s statements about it. Madison, indeed, worried deeply about unchecked presidential war powers. But Feldman’s book shows that Madison did not emphasize the same risks and checks so often ascribed to him today, especially by congressionalists who...

On this day in 1787, Federalist Paper No. 10 is published. The Federalist Papers are a collection of essays that were published in New York newspapers in late 1787 and early 1788. They argued FOR the new Constitution, then being considered for ratification by the states. This particular paper was written by the Father of the Constitution, James Madison! He is writing under the pseudonym “Publius.” Madison continues a discussion begun in earlier papers: Why is a formal Union best for America? Why shouldn’t the thirteen states break up into 3 or 4 different confederacies, as some were then suggesting?...

Well, today’s the day. The Electoral College will vote to officially instate Donald J. Trump as the duly elected President Elect of the United States. Despite the impassioned pleas from the likes of Joy Behar, Michael Moore, Martin Sheen and Hot Lips Houlihan. Suddenly these constitutional scholars are experts on the machinations if the Electoral College.  Let’s remember that the only distinct skill of an actor is their ability to convincingly read lines written by somebody else.If they understand the words and the context they can reinforce the words with emotive behaviors. If they don’t understand the words, well, that’s...

Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway musical phenomenon that tells the story of “ten-dollar Founding Father without a father” Alexander Hamilton, was named winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. It joins an exclusive club of just eight other musicals that have won the prestigious award since it was founded nearly a century ago. The Pulitzer, which is awarded to “a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life,” includes a $10,000 cash prize. Finalists were Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and The Humans by Stephen Karam. This year's Drama Pulitzer jury consisted of...

... But it is alledged that it might be employed in such a manner as to promote the election of some favourite class of men in exclusion of others; by confining the places of election to particular districts, and rendering it impracticable to the citizens at large to partake in the choice. Of all chimerical suppositions, this seems to be the most chimerical. On the one hand no rational calculation of probabilities would lead us to imagine, that the disposition, which a conduct so violent and extraordinary would imply, could ever find its way into the national councils; and on...

**SNIP** 1. Biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted in the 1970s that: "Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make," and that "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." 2. In January 1970, Life reported, "Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support... the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution... by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half..." 3. In...

Ben Franklin is the prototype for the celebrity-as-politician. His autobiography is still in print; if he were alive, he’d be on Drudge’s columnists’ list, and command speaking fees that would turn Hillary Clinton green with envy. A popular T-shirt has a quote erroneously attributed to Franklin: ‘Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.’ But John Witherspoon? He wasn’t a fan of self-promotion, which was no less prevalent then. Today, in D.C., his statue stands at a tiny triangle where Connecticut Avenue intersects with N Street and 18th Street N.W. It is routinely ignored. At...

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reaffirmed his commitment to defending the Constitution while speaking to the Federalist Society in his home state of New Jersey on Friday. Scalia, the preeminent conservative firebrand of the court, told the audience it is the structure of the government under the Constitution and not the liberties guaranteed under the Bill of Rights that makes us free. As reported by The Daily Signal: “Every tin horn dictator in the world today, every president for life, has a Bill of Rights,” said Scalia, author of the 2012 book Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts. “That’s...

The thing that always irks me about their "water the tree of liberty" types is their sheer stupidity. Seriously, you think you and your buddies are going to play Red Dawn against the full might of the U.S. government? Where do you suppose all that defense budget money went, folks? And now we have Ted Cruz, egging them on. Dear sweet Jesus, this man has no conscience. Via Talking Points Memo: WASHINGTON — It's a given that every Republican presidential candidate will run for president as a strong supporter of gun rights. But Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is arguing that...

The Economist magazine recently published "What's gone wrong with Democracy ... and what can be done to revive it?" The suggestion is that democracy is some kind of ideal for organizing human conduct. That's a popular misconception. The ideal way to organize human conduct is to create a system that maximizes personal liberty for all. Liberty and democracy are not synonymous and most often are opposites. In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison explained, "Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an...