Tag
Founding
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The States' House
The Senate was never meant to be a second House. It was the chamber of the states, the states’ structural check on the federal government, until a 1913 amendment cut that wire and turned both chambers over to the same electorate. The …
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The People's House
The House was built to be the chamber closest to the people, and it has drifted furthest from them: frozen at 435, districts swollen to three-quarters of a million, apportioned by residents rather than citizens, filled by careerists. The …
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Why Rewrite It
Proposing to rewrite the Constitution sounds like sacrilege. But we have already rewritten it, by drift and convenience rather than by amendment, into something far less bound than the original. The only question left is whether we write an …
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Beyond the Reach of the Vote
Democracy and republic are not two words for the same thing, and the difference is the whole argument. A democracy makes the will of the majority the highest authority. A republic puts a written law above the majority and places certain …
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The Forgotten Amendment on Representation
The first amendment proposed by the First Congress addressed the size of the House of Representatives and how closely it should track population growth. It never became part of the Constitution. A modern statutory alternative called the …
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The Country That Was an Argument
Two hundred and fifty years ago a handful of men grounded a country not in a king or a bloodline but in an idea about the individual: that you own yourself, that your rights come before any government, and that a government is legitimate …