1,856 words
Carl Schmitt can illuminate American politics and jurisprudence by offering an outside perspective from continental Europe. First, his idea of the state of exception can help describe how the United States Constitution was rewritten in the Civil Rights era. And secondly, his description of the sovereign and of political theology explain in part why American conservatism has been a spectacular failure. (more…)
3,412 words
Aside from forecasting the future in terms of how college admissions will work, the recent Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action — Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, which can be read here — provides us an opportunity to analyze the current state of United States law and to pierce the undeserved mystique surrounding the legal profession. Your reading of this essay alone will demonstrate in itself that lawyering is not alchemy. (more…)
2,278 words
John G. Grove
John C. Calhoun’s Theory of Republicanism
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2016
Recognized as a brilliant political mind during his time, today John C. Calhoun is generally caricatured as an apologist for slavery and Southern secession. Comparatively little attention is given to his political philosophy. John G. Grove’s John C. Calhoun’s Theory of Republicanism is a long-overdue appraisal of Calhoun’s worldview and makes the case for why he should be recognized as one of America’s great political thinkers. (more…)
A French dragoon harassing a Huguenot.
A French dragoon harassing a Huguenot.
1,585 words
The Third Amendment is, unsurprisingly, the least litigated out of all Constitutional amendments. Its effect on Constitutional law is almost nonexistent. While everyone may be glad that “no soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law,“ it probably would not have been an issue (more…)
1,503 words
1,503 words
The prevailing conservative legal theory is ripe for a challenge in the nationalist era. Ever since the 1970s, originalism — which mandates a strict interpretation of the Constitution’s original intent — has held sway over the American Right. This mindset has resulted in a deification of the Constitution and the inability to recognize current predicaments as different from the 18th century. (more…)
1,370 words
John E. Finn
Fracturing the Founding: How the Alt-Right Corrupts the Constitution
Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019
The first thing to understand about this polemical work is that it has very little to do with the Alt Right. As readers of this site are aware, the core of the authentic Alt Right is white racial advocacy unencumbered by taboos against the discussion of human differences or Jewish influence; (more…)