Federalism

With calm, knowledgeable precision,

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With calm, knowledgeable precision, Daniel Ziblatt wades into the adjacent swamps of federalism and nineteenth-century European history, emerging with hands full of gems. Beneath the tangle of great statesmen and national culture he discovers conflicting regional political interests, sharp regional variations in political capacity, fearful defenses against excessive democracy, coercive conquest of weak states, and … Read more

To attach full confidence

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To attach full confidence to an institution of this nature, it appears to be an essential ingredient in its structure, that it shall be under private and not a public direction-under the guidance of individual interest, not of public policy; which, would be . . . liable to being too much influenced by public necessity. … Read more

The proposed Constitution, so

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The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with … Read more

I confess I am

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I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons entrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition. Alexander … Read more

The administration of private

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The administration of private justice between the citizens of the same state, the supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a similar nature, all those things in short which are proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction . . . the attempt to exercise … Read more