“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” This question, asked by English writer Samuel Johnson in 1775, still touches a nerve today. Americans on the one hand carry the pride of one of the oldest sets of representative institutions in the
It may be difficult to believe today, but Congress was once a force to be reckoned with. The pinnacle of this, of course, was Reconstruction, during which Congress regularly overrode the president’s veto and even impeached one for the first time. Most significantly, the Reconstruction Congress regularly put the
The problem with democracies is that they are sclerotic, indecisive, and dithering; by contrast, states ruled by strong and capable dictators are capable of rapid policy change–or so it is argued. As one prominent critic puts it, democracies “are inherently reactionary and absolutist” compared with dictatorships, which “accept the
In the 19th century, some of the world—the “global north”—began to grow rich. It began at a jog but, by the end of the century, it had become a sprint. As scientific, technical, and productive capabilities expanded beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings, some contemporaries did begin to imagine
For the past month, the public debate has been roiled with those who believe it too dangerous to prosecute a former president under current political conditions, and those who believe it too dangerous to let presidents break laws with impunity without facing consequences. There’s a striking contrast with the
The triumph of modern representative democracy was, in part, the culmination of a moral revolution. The heralds of this revolution were those great documents of the 18th century, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Today it is a commonplace that the people
For years, a diverse group of liberals and left-of-center commentators have called on Congress to expand the size of the Supreme Court. This argument moved from the background to the forefront after a Republican Senate stonewalled Obama’s final nomination entirely, allowing his Republican successor to fill the vacant seat
Is America built on a foundation of broken promises? Many constitutional fundamentalists in the legal academy today believe this is without question the case. Joining this conviction is the fear that the promises broken to date will pale in comparison to those broken in the future; that to deviate from
I can’t change Texas’s law, but you can. You can and everyone else who may or may not like it can go out there and be lobbying forces in changing laws that you don’t like. Justice Sonia Sotomayor There is a great deal to dislike about the
There are many factors in a free society which conspire to make the public sphere an unseemly terrain. Citizen sovereignty increases the stakes of public persuasion by distributing voting power so broadly that personal persuasion alone cannot suffice to keep elected officials in office. Consumer sovereignty leaves political media constrained
It has been five years since Liberal Currents launched with seven essays at the ready. Many more have been published since; as of this writing we expect to hit our 300th essay within six or seven months. After spending our first three years as an all-volunteer effort, we launched a
The creation, proliferation, and persistence of liberal democracy in the last century is a triumph which we should neither underestimate nor take for granted. For liberals, the protection of liberties, the strengthening of democratic accountability, the quest for lawfulness, the fostering of new capabilities and proliferation of old ones, as
The American federal system and the various Supreme Courts that have defended its boundaries impose firm limitations on what system-wide reforms are possible. To many it seems impossible to make any meaningful improvement to American governance without amending the Constitution, something that requires a massive supermajority. But American federalism need
All social relations create vulnerabilities and dependencies that are subject to abuse. This is a fundamental fact about the social nature of humanity, a baseline from which all specific arrangements need to be judged. Most of our public debates,however, take the posture of implying that the mere occurrence of
Most Americans take pride in our Constitutional order, and the basic grade school version of it—with checks and balances, the three branches, and so forth—that they are familiar with. But they do not really know our system, because you cannot understand a system without some grasp of how
“What happened to Brock??” I will never forget the moment I saw these words. On Monday morning more than two years ago now, I was walking towards my son’s daycare to drop him off that morning, and I had checked my phone and seen that there was an unread