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Author’s Note: Selections from all resolutions and working drafts are italicized. Most of what we know about the framers’ discussions comes from James Madison’s…
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On Saturday September 17, 1938 New York governor Herbert H. Lehman and 5,000 others assembled in Poughkeepsie to observe the sesquicentennial of the Empire…
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As adopted by the Constitutional Convention, Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution mandated that the population numbers forming the basis for…
Speaking at South Carolina’s ratification convention in 1788, Charles Pinckney derided the Articles of Confederation as a “miserable, feeble mockery of government.” Pinckney was…
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This month, we asked our contributors to consider the many changes of fortune that occurred over the tumultuous four decades that transformed thirteen British…
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The year 1780 ended badly, and the new year boded worse for America’s War of Independence. Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold’s treason and defection to…
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There is a gap in most histories of the United States Navy. The blank space lies between the end of the American Revolution and…
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Through four months in the summer of 1787, passionate arguments over political principles filled the Pennsylvania State House while hard-nosed political horse-trading buzzed in…
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The charge was leveled often in his own time, as it has been ever since: James Madison is and was a hypocrite—a man inconstant…
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Perhaps you’ve seen this mythbuster: “WHO WAS THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA? I suspect George Washington was your best guess….
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On June 12, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed a committee to prepare a plan of confederation for the young colonies. The articles directed the…
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Myth: The framers were anti-tax, and it is no accident they failed to provide for income taxes in the Constitution. Busted: “No taxation without…