Friday Roundup, August 16th
Can we Accelerate Democracy with new information technologies and more transparent rule following and accountability? John McGinnis thinks we can and he stopped by Liberty Law Talk to discuss these ideas. Did the War of 1812 reveal the failure of Jeffersonian ideology? Stephen Knott argues that it did in our feature review essay of a new anthology on the War of 1812. Can you incorporate the Tenth Amendment? After Printz, what would be the point? So, has Angela Merkel been reading her Pierre Manent? Islam and the West: An Interview with Robert Reilly Something new on healthcare from the National Research Initiative at AEI: "[E]stablishing…
Republican Ideology and Its Failure in the War of 1812
The Library of America continues its outstanding contribution to the preservation and dissemination of America’s literary heritage with this collection of letters, speeches, diary excerpts and newspaper articles from “America’s forgotten conflict.” You might not know it, unless you live in Maryland [home of the “star-spangled” license plate] or one of the states bordering the Great Lakes, but we are in the midst of “celebrating” the bicentennial of the War of 1812. This war suffers from obscurity in part due to the fact that for two of its principal players, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson (the latter acted as a…
Alexander Hamilton’s Legacy in Banking and Finance
We come now to the final and perhaps most important part of McCraw’s Founders and Finance: the practical effects of Hamilton’s political economy. Here is where Hamilton’s ultimate legacy is often said to be. The precedent of the idea of a national bank or ultimate regulatory authority over money became, at this point in time, inextricably part of American politics. This is not to say that the idea of national banking was inextricable institutionally. Andrew Jackson ended the second Bank of the United States, and the idea of the Independent Treasury held sway until the National Bank Acts of the Civil War. But Hamilton had established the first political precedent of national involvement in money and finance. That history and its supposed success would be continually asserted to pave the way, at least in part, for the Federal Reserve System in the early twentieth century.
Lincoln’s Code of War
The next edition of Liberty Law Talk is with professor and author John Fabian Witt on the subject of his new book Lincoln's Code: The Laws of War in American History. Recently named by the New York Times to its 100 Notable Books' List for 2012, Witt's account of the laws of war in American history illustrates the tensions and conflicts that have followed from America's intention since the Declaration of Independence to fight under the existing laws of war, appealing to them for protection, while also using them to advance American interests. Witt's account moves through the War for…
