The Declaration
- The Declaration of Independence
The argument for legitimacy, and the conditions under which it is forfeited. Excerpt of the opening; the full text including all grievances is at the archive…
The Constitution
- The Preamble
Three words that decide where authority comes from.
- All Legislative Powers Herein Granted
Two words carry the whole limit: herein granted.
- Congress Shall Have Power To Coin Money
The money power sits in Congress, listed beside weights and measures.
- Congress Shall Have Power To Declare War
The decision to go to war belongs to Congress. That was deliberate.
- No Army Appropriation For Longer Than Two Years
Every army expires in two years unless Congress votes it back.
- Necessary And Proper
Called the sweeping clause by its opponents. The argument never ended.
- The Privilege Of The Writ Of Habeas Corpus
The jailer must state a lawful reason. Suspension requires rebellion or invasion.
- No Bill Of Attainder Or Ex Post Facto Law
Congress cannot convict you by statute, and cannot criminalize the past.
- A Regular Statement Of All Public Money
No spending without a law, and a published account of every dollar.
- The Executive Power Shall Be Vested
One officer, one fixed term, one person answerable.
- Impeachment And Removal
A fixed term is not immunity for the length of it.
- The Judicial Power Shall Be Vested
Tenure and salary protection so judgment cannot be bought or starved.
- Treason Against The United States
The only crime the Constitution defines, and it defines it narrowly on purpose.
- The Amendment Process
Two routes to change the text. Neither one is interpretation.
- The Supremacy Clause
Supreme, but only the laws made in pursuance of the Constitution.
- No Religious Test Shall Ever Be Required
An oath to the Constitution. Never a creed.
The Bill of Rights
- The First Amendment
Five protections in one sentence: religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition.
- The Second Amendment
An armed citizenry as the stated condition of a free state.
- The Third Amendment
No soldiers in your home. The least litigated amendment and the clearest.
- The Fourth Amendment
Warrants must name the place and the thing. General warrants are the abuse this forbids.
- The Fifth Amendment
Grand jury, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, due process, and just compensation.
- The Sixth Amendment
Speedy, public, local, and with a lawyer. The trial rights in one clause.
- The Seventh Amendment
The civil jury, and the rule that a court cannot simply re-decide what a jury found.
- The Eighth Amendment
Bail, fines, and punishment, each bounded by proportion.
- The Ninth Amendment
The list is not the limit. Rights not written down are still yours.
- The Tenth Amendment
Federal power is what the text grants. Everything else is reserved.
Later Amendments
- The Eleventh Amendment
The first time an amendment was used to overturn a Supreme Court ruling.
- The Twelfth Amendment
A structural repair written by a deadlock.
- The Thirteenth Amendment
Abolition, and the exception written into the same sentence.
- The Fourteenth Amendment, Section One
Citizenship, due process, and equal protection applied against the states.
- The Fifteenth Amendment
The ground was barred. The mechanisms were not.
- The Sixteenth Amendment
A limit removed rather than a protection added.
- The Seventeenth Amendment
The states lost their seat at the federal table.
- The Eighteenth Amendment
The only amendment aimed at citizens rather than government, and the only one repealed.
- The Nineteenth Amendment
Forty-two years between introduction and ratification.
- The Twentieth Amendment
Closing the four-month gap between rejection and departure.
- The Twenty-First Amendment
The proof that the process runs both ways.
- The Twenty-Second Amendment
A custom written down after it was broken.
- The Twenty-Third Amendment
Electors for the capital, capped at the smallest state's share.
- The Twenty-Fourth Amendment
Closing the mechanism the Fifteenth Amendment's text did not reach.
- The Twenty-Fifth Amendment
Succession, and a mechanism for declaring a President unable to serve.
- The Twenty-Sixth Amendment
Ratified in about three months. The fastest in American history.
- The Twenty-Seventh Amendment
Proposed in 1789. Ratified in 1992.
The Federalist Papers
- Federalist No. 10
Faction is incurable. The design answer is scale and structure.
- Federalist No. 26
Why the two-year army limit was meant to be a real check.
- Federalist No. 29
The militia argument, made by the Constitution's strongest defender.
- Federalist No. 33
Acts outside the granted powers are usurpation, not supreme law.
- Federalist No. 43
Why treason is the one crime the Constitution defines itself.
- Federalist No. 45
Few and defined. The sentence the Tenth Amendment turned into text.
- Federalist No. 46
The armed-population argument, in the words of the man who drafted the Second Amendment.
- Federalist No. 51
The design assumes ambition rather than virtue.
- Federalist No. 69
Commander-in-chief compared clause by clause with a king.
- Federalist No. 70
Unity in the executive, defended as accountability rather than power.
- Federalist No. 78
Neither force nor will, but merely judgment.
- Federalist No. 84
The argument against a Bill of Rights, made by the man who lost it.
Anti-Federalist Essays
- Brutus No. 1
The case against ratification, made first and made best.