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Dr. Ruth: Preaching the Goodness of Sex

In my latest piece for The Objective Standard, I take a look at a new documentary about one of my real heroes, Dr. Ruth Westheimer. What a remarkable lady she is.

John Marshall: Dual Sovereignty, One Republic

In the new issue of The Objective Standard, I examine the career of Chief Justice John Marshall, and in particular his career-long emphasis on the principle of "divided sovereignty" under the U.S. Constitution. Excerpt:

When the [National B]ank’s agent in Baltimore, James McCulloch, refused to pay, the state sued him, and he appealed to the Supreme Court.

The state’s legal team was led by Luther Martin, the same lawyer who had been the most outspoken proponent of States’ Rights theory at the Constitutional Convention. He and his co-counsel argued not only that Congress lacked power to create a bank, but that doing so intruded on Maryland’s sovereignty. “The Constitution,” argued one of his colleagues, “was formed and adopted, not by the people of the United States at large, but by the people of the respective states.... It is, therefore, a compact between the states, and all the powers which are not expressly relinquished by [the compact], are reserved to the states.” When Martin spoke, he reiterated that point. A state’s power to tax was “absolutely unlimited,” and the states “would not have adopted the constitution, upon any other understanding.”

Seeing an opportunity to denounce States’ Rights theory, Marshall reasserted the principle of dual sovereignty in his decision upholding the bank. “The counsel for the state of Maryland,” he wrote, “have deemed it of some importance...to consider [the Constitution], not as emanating from the people, but as the act of sovereign and independent states.” This, however, was “difficult to sustain.” The Constitution “derives its whole authority” from the American people, not from the states. When it was ratified, “it required not the affirmance, and could not be negatived, by the state governments.” That fact had been “acknowledged by all” during the ratification debates, and must never be forgotten: “The government of the Union...is, emphatically and truly, a government of the people. In form, and in substance, it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit.” When Congress acted, it acted on behalf of the whole nation, and so long as it exercised lawful authority, the fact that its laws might intrude on state autonomy was simply irrelevant.

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Allen Guelzo reviews my Douglass book and others in the Claremont Review of Books

The newest issue of the Claremont Review of Books contains Allen Guelzo's review of my Frederick Douglass biography, as well as David Blight's and D.H. Dilbeck's. Excerpt:

Timothy Sandefur...sets up the conflict of slavery and freedom as a civilizational clash between Northern free labor and Southern feudal socialism. "Slavery," he explains, posed as "a humane alternative to the industrial capitalism rising in Europe and in the northern states" by promoting "collective welfare under the oversight of intelligent and beneficent masters." In resisting, escaping from, and denouncing slavery, Douglass takes his place on the side of the capitalist angels. Sandefur might better have avoided translating Douglass's experience into 20th century terms, describing Edward Covey's farm anachronistically as a re-education camp or invoking comparisons between the plantation South and the Nazi or Soviet regimes. Still, he's certainly right in understanding Douglass as a "classical liberal" who was "unsympathetic to the newfangled theories of socialism and communism"--someone more akin to Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Clarence Thomas than to "contemporary social justice activists of the left."

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Monticello's 250th anniversary

It was 250 years ago that construction began on Monticello. At The Objective Standard, I talk about Jefferson's work as an architect.