Is our federalist system a way for states to offer different penalties, or no penalties, for commonly illegal drugs? This week at a campaign event in Iowa, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie went back and forth with a nurse who is a proponent of legalizing the...
Gun Control and Federalist #46: Does Madison argue for an expansive or restrictive gun control regime? Since the Umpqua shooting in Oregon, gun control has been back in the news. President Obama’s address the following day seized the moment for a political jab at gun control...
Should the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights list a protected right to travel? This past weekend many citizens and visitors to Philadelphia were denied the right to freely travel for days on end. How long is too long to prevent someone from driving or bicycling...
Our Constitution exists in no small measure because of the tireless efforts of our Founders to convince the American people that it was needed. Writing 85 articles and essays published throughout the newly independent country, they argued that the Constitution was the best way to...
Perfect it is not. Nothing is. Some framers sought to outlaw slavery before realizing it was politically impossible at the time. And if they had it to do again, they might have, for example, included term limits for Congress. They might have limited the power...
For all of us currently alive who know only the United States, it may seem odd to consider the defense of the various states as individual bodies. That however, was the state of affairs before the Constitution’s adoption, and one that motivated the Founders to...
James Madison is generally regarded as the father of the United States Constitution. No other delegate was better prepared for the Federal Convention of 1787, and no one contributed more than Madison to shaping the ideas and contours of the document or to explaining its...
The Federalist Papers, written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, were described by Thomas Jefferson as “the best commentary on the principles of government which was ever written,” and by distinguished historian Clinton Rossiter as “the most important work in political science that...