Many see the new putative constitutional right to same-sex “marriage” and the developments leading up to it as a result of a crisis of culture. It is that, to be sure, but it is also a result of a crisis of leadership. This has become further apparent in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell … Read more
I was at a conference recently on the relationship between constitutionalism and liberty. There were quite a few very smart and learned people there. Two things struck me in particular from the conversations we had over several days: first, how little faith scholars today seem to have in constitutional structures, and, second, how little faith … Read more
Daniel Stone’s weekend article from Newsweek on the sheer scope and impossibility of the modern-day presidency is fascinating reading: Obama has looked to many models of leadership, including FDR and Abraham Lincoln, two transformative presidents who governed during times of upheaval. But what’s lost in those historical comparisons is that both men ran slim bureaucracies … Read more
Once, when asked his philosophy, Franklin Roosevelt answered simply, “I am a Christian and a Democrat.” As always with Roosevelt, there was more to it than that. He was not just a Christian, but a Protestant, an Episcopalian, a descendant of Huguenot and Yankee New Englanders on his mother’s side. And he was not just … Read more
If you want to see President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s legacy, look around you. Scores of agencies created during his tenure are still around, including Social Security and welfare. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression Amity Shlaes; HarperCollins; 390 pages. Reviewed by Martin Morse Wooster If you want to see … Read more