Tag: history
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Constitutional Amendment II
Amendment 2 is worded as an absolute: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. The prohibition on infringing upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms is not limited to the Congress.…
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Constitutional Amendment I
The beauty of the amendments in the Bill of Rights is that they are all short enough that I will be comfortable quoting each amendment in its entirety as I write about it. That may not hold as I get to the later amendments. Here is Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an…
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Constitution of the United States
Having completed a review of each of the 85 Federalist Papers I am excited to finally write about the Constitution of the United States that they were written to promote. My goal is to reduce the Constitution to a very simple outline showing the form of government that we were meant to have. I will…
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Federalist No. 85
In the last of the Federalist papers, Federalist No. 85, Hamilton concludes by arguing that the preceding papers should demonstrate that the proposed constitution is fundamentally sound, and that it should be ratified regardless of any few faults or reservations that people might have because revision prior to ratification would be more difficult than amendment…
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Federalist No. 84
In his penultimate federalist paper, Federalist No. 84, Hamilton ties up a few loose ends and once again shows his prescience. As I was reading this thought on the need (or lack thereof) for a Bill of Rights: a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like that under…
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Federalist Nos. 80 – 83
Some of the items of discussion in the federalist papers are so obvious that I must conclude that the purpose of these papers was not onyl to answer critics of the proposed constitution, but also to endeavor to generally educate those who had not considered the necessities of government in order that they might make…
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Federalist Nos. 78 – 79
I had always been taught that the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches were fundamentally equal in power within the federal government (checks and balances etc.) but Federalist No. 78 says otherwise: the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power. I wonder if my understanding is a byproduct of the power…
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Federalist Nos. 76 – 77
Federalist Nos 76 and 77 discuss the power of the president to nominate people for high government offices. I notice that these papers use some of the very same arguments in defending these powers of the president as were used to defend other powers that were to be vested in the proposed executive. I also…
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Obama’s First 100
Today is day number 100 for the Obama Administration. This has been a benchmark of measurement for every administration since FDR. There will be lots of stories in the political media attempting to measure how he is doing as a president. This morning on NPR they perfectly captured the measure in only six words: His…
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Considering Secession
An intriguing discussion erupted after a recent post by Connor. I was soon asking what history would have looked like if the South had been allowed to secede rather than fight the Civil War. Later another commenter asked an even better question: By allowing the South to secede, wouldn’t that be setting up a dangerous…