Founders — Bunk History

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Constitution mural in the Capitol rotunda.

James Madison and the Crisis of the New Order

The effort to return American government to republican principles is daunting—but the Founders’ wisdom can serve as a guide.

by Richard Samuelson via Law & Liberty on March 4, 2025

"Made in U.S.A." sticker

The Return of Political Economic Nationalism

The populist turn in our politics is best understood as a revival of old categories of political economy.

by Matt Wolfson via Law & Liberty on February 25, 2025

President Franklin Roosevelt, seated with the CCC.

A Constitutional Rule on Federal Spending

USAID grants may have cracked constitutional spending limits.

by Robert Natelson via Law & Liberty on February 20, 2025

Presidents May Not Unilaterally Dismantle Government Agencies

That’s not how separation of powers works under the U.S. Constitution.

by Peter M. Shane via The Atlantic on February 12, 2025

Trump May Wish to Abolish the Past. We Historians Will Not.

Commentary from the heads of two prominent historical associations on Trump’s recent executive order on “radical indoctrination” in schools.

by David W. Blight, James Grossman, Beth English via The New Republic on February 6, 2025

Baseball caps that read "Canada Is Not For Sale."

Trump Shares the Founders' Delusions on Canada

Attempts to add Canada to the U.S. have gone poorly since the 1770s. Trump's rhetoric threatens a repeat.

by Lawrence B. A. Hatter via Made By History on February 4, 2025

Collage of the American flag and the preamble to the Constitution.

The Historical Challenge to Originalism

Jonathan Gienapp's attack on originalism deserves a serious response.

by John O. McGinnis, Aaron N. Coleman, Mike Rappaport via Law & Liberty on January 16, 2025

Statue of Andrew Jackson on galloping horse, in Jackson Square, New Orleans.

Trump Should Revive Jacksonian Military Attitudes

The worship of military technocrats underwrites American failures abroad.

by Hunter DeRensis via The American Conservative on January 15, 2025

Stamp commemorating "Contributors To The Cause... Haym Salomon, Financial Hero."

Dusting Off the Old Stories

What does the Jewish experience in the Revolutionary War say about America?

by Richard Kreitner via Jewish Review of Books on January 15, 2025

Drawing of the first five presidents.

When Presidents Sent Handwritten Lists of Their Nominees to the Senate

The U.S. faces the likelihood of a bruising and raucous set of confirmation hearings — a clear break from the cooperative system the founders established.

by Peter J. Kastor via The Conversation on January 13, 2025

David Rubenstein

King David

Carlyle Group founder David Rubenstein has cultivated a reputation as a well-meaning advocate of history education. What does that image mask?

by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on December 24, 2024

President Roosevelt signs the proclamation naming December 15 as Bill of Rights Day.

The Reinvention of the Bill of Rights

The New Deal-era creation of “Bill of Rights Day” obscures the real nature and guardrails of American liberty.

by Jerome C. Foss via Law & Liberty on December 13, 2024

Drawing of George Washington watching over a group of enslaved people working in a field at Mount Vernon.

Even George Washington Was a Tyrant

We don't need to find heroes in our past presidents. We need to try to understand that tyranny has always been part of American freedom.

by Karin Wulf via Made By History on November 18, 2024

The Case Against New York Times v. Sullivan

The malice test is the result of judicial activism and should be rejected by a Court that understands its task as the discovery, not the invention of law.

by Carson Holloway via Law & Liberty on November 1, 2024

Harris carved in stone next to Mount Rushmore.

Kamala Harris Must Grapple with America’s Founding Fathers

To achieve a new political settlement, she has to resolve a tension dating from the Revolution.

by Justin H. Vassallo via New Statesman on October 12, 2024

US President or American Caesar?

American democracy has been haunted by the spectre of a Caesar-type figure since the birth of the republic. Have such fears ever been justified?

by Ian McDaniel via History Today on September 25, 2024

U.S. Constitution

This Book Could Change the Way Conservatives Read the Constitution

“Against Constitutional Originalism” by historian Jonathan Gienapp could fundamentally reorient how we understand America’s founding.

by Cass R. Sunstein via Washington Post on September 25, 2024

Donald Trump speaks at a rally in July in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

What’s the Matter With the Democrats?

Two new books reveal the shortcomings at the heart of the liberal critique of Trump voters.

by Sean T. Byrnes via Dissent on September 23, 2024

Photograph of young students getting off a school bus.

Public Schools Really Can Save America

America's public schools were founded on the ideal of uniting rich and poor, but inequality persists due to racial, income, and systemic divides.

by Adam Laats via Current (religion and democracy) on September 5, 2024

Photo of Supreme Court Justices posing in gowns.

The Origin of Specious

Originalism is not so much an idea as a legal-industrial complex divided into three parts—the academic, the jurisprudential, and the political.

by Garrett Epps via Washington Monthly on August 25, 2024

Protestors and counter-protestors face off holding flags and posters.

Two Americas?

Heather Cox Richardson argues that there are two Americas: one interested in equality, the other in hierarchy. But it's not that simple.

by Nicholas Misukanis via Commonweal on August 6, 2024

Damaged glass negative showing children looking at the U.S. Constitution, 1920.

A Nation Is a Living Thing

In the 1920s, many in the U.S. fought for a living Constitution. Plenty of others wanted it dead.

by Michael D. Hattem via HNN on August 6, 2024

Illustration of John Roberts, with face obscured by half of the presidential seal.

The Supreme Court Fools Itself

The Roberts Court has made the current crisis of American democracy perpetual.

by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on July 24, 2024

Donald Trump walking onstage, next to four American flags.

‘The Dred Scott of Our Time’

The Supreme Court has invested the presidency with quasi-monarchial powers, repudiating the foundational principle of the rule of law.

by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on July 4, 2024

Engraving of the Battle of Lexington After Alonzo Chappel: American colonists and British soldiers exchange fire at the Battle of Lexington, the first skirmish in the US War of Independence.

Taking Up the American Revolution’s Egalitarian Legacy

Despite its failures and limitations, the American Revolution unleashed popular aspirations to throw off tyranny of all kinds.

by Taylor Clark via Jacobin on July 4, 2024

Lithograph of George Washington on his land with people he enslaved.

What, to the American, Is Revolutionary?

The colonial rebellion we celebrate every July 4th doesn’t fit the definition.

by Kellie Carter Jackson via The Emancipator on July 2, 2024

U.S. Capitol building ca. 1800.

Creating a Federal Government, 1789-1829

Digital archive and interactive map that tells the story of U.S. government institutions through the lives and work of federal employees.

by Peter J. Kastor via Washington University in St. Louis on July 1, 2024

Cover of "American Civil Wars" by Alan Taylor.

Our Civil War Was Bigger Than You Think

Alan Taylor’s case for thinking of it as a continental conflict.

by Casey Michel via The Bulwark on June 21, 2024

National Guard members deploy near the White House as peaceful protests are scheduled against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, on June 6, 2020 in Washington, D.C.

The Most Dangerous Law in America

The Insurrection Act is a nuclear bomb hidden in the United States code, giving presidents unimaginable emergency power. No President has abused it. Yet.

by Joseph Nunn via Democracy Journal on June 10, 2024

Carbinari seal of a woman holding a liberty cap.

Lady Liberty in Restoration Italy? Crime, Counterfeit, and Carbonari Revolutionary Politics

Following Napoleon’s fall, international secret societies emerged promoting dissent from absolutist forms of power and sharing ideologies and iconographies.

by Giuseppe Perelli via Age of Revolutions on June 3, 2024

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