The main point UE advocates neglect is that the Framers emphasized responsibility as the key duty and perpetual obligation of a unitary executive while the ostensible virtues of energy, vigor, dispatch, and secrecy were only advantages of decision-making that would be exercised only occasionally..

Some counterfactual musings for our 238th Constitution Day (hopefully not our last, but who knows?). A few typos have to be corrected, hopefully before you awaken, but it should give you something serious to think about (exactly what we don't need). washingtonmonthly.com/2025/09/17/c...

As I have argued previously, when one is living as we are in an ongoing constitutional crisis, that term loses its analytical meaning. The better term is constitutional failure, meaning that our institutions are no longer capable of fulfilling their responsibilities.

Proud to contribute an essay on "A Brief Biography of the Second Amendment" to this amazing collection. www.vitalcitynyc.org/issues/issue...

This is a really smart piece which draws some strong inferences about the deteriorating condition of the federal Union. As a historian of the Articles of Confederation (my first book), I have wondered if its model of governance might be a better option for us now. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

There is a curious but common misstatement here. PREROGATIVE was something that always belonged to the Crown. Americans are still arguing how much of the royal prerogative was incorporated in the presidency. This is a big component of the spurious United Executive Theory.

Norm's account of his essay is, if anything, too modest.

The "highest stages" of semantic or public meaning originalism seem to embidy a neo-Platonic approach to constitutional interpretation. Whether this is occult or not is something I've not yet reckoned with. It is wholly indifferent to questions of the political origins of most clauses.

Speaking metaphorically or symbolically or whatever, we could also say that the UET has reached its apocalyptic apotheosis, with a constitutional gottdammerung still pending. Given the fascistic forces at play in GOP politics, striking a Wagnerian note seems apt.

Curiously enough I'm about to finish a book chapter that deals with the same subject that @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social discusses in this piece. Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/o...

I am one of a virtual Greek chorus of scholars to sound off on the willful intrusiveness of the current administration in Thomas Edsall's weekly column. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/o...

I would be skeptical about this claim (putting aside the question of how one defines racism in historically specific terms). The most advanced statement from the Founding era would be Jefferson's discussion of emancipation followed by colonization in Query XIV of Notes on the State of Virginia.

The Bernie Madoff Award for supporting cryptocurrency.

Or really, the amount of time it takes the Metro doors to open and close and repeating the same announcements ad nauseum at every stop.

Sarcasm and a fawning sense of dependence might be the best response to this militarist DC nonsense. Ask the Guardsmen to accompany you on those interminable escalator rides into the deep dark bowels of the Metro because it is so dangerous. Foster a sense of moral embarrassment for the troops.

It's true. I do not think that the line originated with him, but I cannot recall who he got it from. Maybe his buddy Vito Marzullo? Maybe my sister remembers? In the genre of political epitaphs, it remains a great line!

Taking the long view: my Madisonian contribution to The Next 250 series that was recently launched at The Dispatch: thedispatch.com/next-250/mad...

A false choice if ever there was one. And if in fact I weigh in on constitutional issues from a historical standpoint, something I can literally do daily, is that not doing more to validate the profession than any other activity I could possibly do (especially as an emeritus alte kaker).

Great article featuring my undergraduate advisee @henry-ishitani.bsky.social (who somehow survived Yale law school) www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/u...

Great column, demonstrating once again that @jamellebouie.net is the best historically-minded journalist of the day, bar none. But I would reinforce his comparison between Trump and Roberts in one substantial respect. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/o...

It will be both amazing (in one sense) and unsurprising (in another) to awaken one June morning to learn that the Fifteenth Amendment is unconstitutional. But with U.S. v. Anderson (the XIV.3 case), there already is an effective precedent.

What kind of "news analysis" (I use the word advisedly) would fail to note that these tariffs have been imposed unconstitutionally, a few days after the hearings in the Federal Circuit Court strongly conveyed the same conclusion? www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b...

This is a great point which I have also been developing in various essays, even including one I am working on today. In many respects, the dominant value that could justify the UET is not the usual guff about vigor, energy, dispatch, but RESPONSIBILITY, a duty Trump has never felt.

Fabulous story about my colleague Tom Mullaney's search for the original Chinese typewriter. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/n...

Paine did not write Common Sense in Boston. Moreover, he was already addicted to the Philly cheesesteak sandwich.

One has to ask the question: is he utterly delusional, utterly demagogic, utterly dishonest (but that's no longer a question, if it ever was), or check all the boxes?

A terrific thread by my younger colleague, with a super-ominous conclusion.

Of course, if it is meant to be a death penalty for the whole constitutional system itself, the practice may make more sense.

Newly relevant. Among other things, SCOTUS' disrespect for the lower courts' backbreaking work is stunning. Detailed rulings & fact-findings met w shadow docket proclamations like, "the administrative stay is granted," or "the govt is likely to prevail [no further detail,] so stay is granted."

Two points about this thread, which is valuable in itself but: 1. You shouldn't follow the Declaration in making George III the key actor. He was not an imperial tyrant but simply an active constitutional monarch adhering to 1688, which means adhering to the legal supremacy of Parliament.

I've had one since 1969, but the dust jacket paid the price. And coincidentally I just completed an essay entitled "Being Schooled with Gordon Wood" that will appear down the road in the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities. Stay tuned.

If you want a podcast suitable for the 4th of July, I hope not the last one we will celebrate as citizens of a free state, this might be of interest. It's based on my book, Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America. pioneerinstitute.org/featured/sta...

ok sports fans: my appearance on @lastword.msnbc.com has been reconfirmed for tonight's broadcast at its halfway mark (10:30 pm eastern), when we will discuss washingtonmonthly.com/2025/06/27/i...

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/o...

Hi Cubs fans Got bumped from the Last Word tonight because of the Senate debate. Should be on Tuesday night now, or so they say.

For all you constitutionalists, Madisonians, and Cubs fans: I'll be on @lastword.msnbc.com tonight at the :45 mark to further discuss washingtonmonthly.com/2025/06/27/i...

This is a subject I have been brooding about for some time. I am grateful to the Washington Monthly for posting this piece. washingtonmonthly.com/2025/06/27/i...

In the annals of political satire, across the ages, this one runs the table. Or if you have a serious contender, let us know. Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice — theonion.com/letter-to-co...

It's not a flipping "dispute." It's an illegal and extortionary attack by an authoritarian government. It's like negotiating down the terms of a mugging. Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/u...

Never thought about it in these terms, but Peck's role in High Noon could confirm the same historical point. High Noon, On the Waterfront, and Casablanca have always been my three favorite classic American films, with Arsenic and Old Lace and Inspector General being the two comic hits.

Great article (and not only because I went to college with the author's father). I would add one substantive or theoretical point to it. The whole point of having representative or republican government is to improve the capacity of institutions to deliberate. This is in fact a Madisonian argument.

This explains why he is famous for his acute reading and incisive commentary on Bismarck and Clausewitz, inter alia. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/u...

Here is a historical footnote about the Impeachment Clause in Article II, Sect. 4 of the Constitution. The Clause the Committee of Detail proposed in its August 6, 1787 report was limited to three charges: treason, bribery, and corruption.

What happens to the Unitary Executive Theory when one realizes that the person exercising it is essentially delusional in character?

Personalization, The Vastly Bigger Story Behind the Pimpmobile Jet Bribe talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/perso...

The depressing thing (well, one among many) is that the audience did not crack up in laughter at his second inauguration when he swore it again. Oh, for just one brave soul to have stood up and said, Give me a break, you insurrectionist.

Bribery requires quid pro quo. Corruption (or better, Machiavelli's use of coruzzione) is a much more expansive term which subsumes bribery but covers other forms of misbehavior. One of these would be the erosion of public trust in the conscientious actions of public officials.

Why do the Emoluments Clauses exist, the inquiring citizen wonders? Here are a few comments, derived from my contribution to the amicus curiae brief filed by a group of historians in the suits brought against Trump in his first administration.

Why not “slashing and gashing” or “cutting and gutting”? That would grab the wary reader.

Well his brother has spoken, so that seems to be the definitive proof. I guess the fallback position, given the universalist claims of the Catholic church, is that he is in the abstract a fan of all or at least both Chicago teams. But with the still small voice of conscience the Sox must come first.