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Fear God. Honor the Emperor. A Conversation with Robert Louis Wilken

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St. Peter's Square in the Vatican City.
Robert Louis Wilken discusses his new book Liberty in the Things of God.

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How to Rebalance Power Between Congress and the Executive Branch

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U.S. Capitol (Tono Balaguer/Shutterstock.com)
Congress faces an inherent collective action problem relative to the President, one that means legislators underinvest in the institution itself.

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A Corrupt Republic? Hamilton, Madison, and the Rise of Oligarchy

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Federal Hall on Wall Street, New York, New York (Image: oneinchpunch/shutterstock.com).
Jay Cost asks his readers to reconsider the ways that corruption all too easily flows from the federal government, in every era.

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James Madison: A Great Political Theorist, But Not A Great Lawyer

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Federalist 9 and 10 (Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com).
For all his contributions to the convention, Madison was not put on the Committee on Detail that provided the penultimate draft of our fundamental law.

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Peter Onuf’s Jefferson

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A great historian shows us how much there is still to learn about the nation’s third President.

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Centinel’s Argument Against Bicameralism

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An undated Anti-Federalist Broadside, "Alarm! Alarm! Alarm! A scheme has been discovered," Library of Congress Printed Ephemera Collection; Portfolio 134, Folder 32.
It would be ironic if American politicians were insufficiently ambitious to sustain a system predicated on “ambition counteracting ambition."

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Real Purpose of the Senate: To Check the Actions of the House

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The Old Senate Chamber in the U.S. Capitol (image: Architect of the Capitol)
Senatorial independence is the highest value, said the Founders—more important than the particular interests of the states from which U.S. senators come.

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Why We Need Hume’s Wisdom on Factions

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President Donald Trump at a press conference, April 27, 2018 (Nicole S. Glass/Shutterstock.com).
As long as presidential power grows, so will our obsession with it, and the people who occupy the Oval Office.

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Hamilton, Madison, and American Oligarchy: A Conversation with Jay Cost

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Jay Cost, author of The Price of Greatness, discusses the political and economic debates between Hamilton and Madison.

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Americans Don’t Need a Politics Cleanse

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City council meeting in Austin, Texas, February, 2016.
Abandoning politics permanently in the face of conflict precludes us from using persuasion, negotiation, and compromise to resolve our disagreements.

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