Detail image from 1860 photograph of Herman Melville, Library of Congress Rare Book Division, LC-USZ62-39759 (b&w film copy neg.)The Rise of Political Caesarism
“The cause is in my will.”—Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene II
We ought to have known it would come to this. Still, the latest assertion of presidential authority assumes a new and ominous form: the power not merely to assert authority outside the law—which can at least masquerade under the banner of Lockean prerogative—but rather to redefine words and, with them, the institution of law itself.
