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Constitution Sunday: “Publius,” The Federalist LI [James Madison]
Independent Journal (New York) February 6, 1788 “But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections of human nature?” This rhetorical question, which James Madison posed, is one that governments throughout the world—throughout history—have answered by showing that even the best-intentioned government fails where it does not take human nature into account.
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The Civil War: Jefferson Davis: Message to the Confederate Congress
April 29, 1861 With only a few weeks at the helm of the Confederate government, president Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Congress had cause for concern—but also cause for inspiration. The whole of the South (and the whole of the North) was animated: men and women were mobilizing; making their preparations to contribute to the…
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The Civil War: Benjamin F. Butler to Winfield Scott
One night in late May 1861, “three negroes”—who said they were field hands, slaves—delivered themselves to the picket line at Fort Monroe in Virginia. Fort Monroe, sat on the peninsula between the York River and James River, had at its helm Brigadier General Benjamin F. Butler. The fugitive slaves had come to the fort to…
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The Civil War: William Howard Russell: from My Diary North and South
April 17, 1861 In the weeks and months leading up to the fall of Fort Sumter, the South had been brimming with excitement for the future. Charleston, South Carolina—with newly taken Fort Sumter in its harbor—was leading the South into that future both through its rhetoric and through its actions. Enthusiasm was abound for what…
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The Civil War: George Templeton Strong: Diary, April 13-16, 1861
Throughout the months leading up to the firing on Fort Sumter, there was widespread wonder about how the country would react to such a provocation; it was bound to be a cleave dividing the country and also its communities. Generations later—with the accordion of events neatly folded and the result of the war known—it would…
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The Indebtedness of the Early Republic
From its declaration of independence to the start of Thomas Jefferson’s first term as president in 1800, the federal government had consistently taken on a significant amount of debt: $80 million in total. See Gordon Wood, Empire of Liberty, 298. Prior to that, the federal government had taken out millions of dollars from Europe, including from the French…
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The “Plebiscitarian Principle”
The president’s role in the government in the early Republic was different than today, and sometimes, it was unclear exactly what role the president would play in the federal government. With the election of 1800, the newly elected Republicans introduced the “plebiscitarian principle,” according to one scholar, Bruce Ackerman. Bruce Ackerman, The Failure of the Founding…
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The Fall of the Federalists
The election of 1800 ushered in a new era of American politics. Thomas Jefferson won the election to become America’s third president, but also, it was a defeat for the Federalists, who had dominated politics in the first few decades of the country’s life. This was not just any defeat, however. This would mark the…
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The Newspaper Revolution
Newspapers are a source that many turn to even now for getting their news. The craze for newspapers in America began in the early years of the Republic, with the proliferation of newspapers to nearly every town in the country. Then and now, newspapers had political slants. In the early Republic, most newspapers had a…
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The American Fear?
Jedidiah Morse, an author and Congregational minister in the United States, spread a rumor that the French Revolution was part of an international conspiracy to both eliminate Christianity and civil government altogether. See Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 244. Morse explained his theory that the French were infiltrating the Republican party “to subvert America’s government and…
Last Best Hope of Earth 