Constitutional Powers

The framers of the Constitution were very concerned about limiting the power of government and in securing the liberty of citizens. To strike a balance between authority and liberty is the central purpose of American Constitutional Law. To this end, they created three branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial with separation of powers, and there were checks and balances of each branch against the other. This was to assure the guarantees of individual liberty. The Death of America occurred on November 5, 2024 as the fatal blow will culminate on January 20, 2025 with the ...

France entered 1789 as one of Europe’s greatest powers. Within four years, its ancient monarchy had fallen, its king had been executed, and a revolution launched in the name of liberty had descended into terror. The French Revolution places the upheaval itself on trial. Across twelve sharply focused cases, Gordon J. MacKenzie examines the institutions, decisions, and personalities that drove France from financial crisis to regicide: the Old Regime, Louis XVI, the Estates-General, the National Assembly, the power of Paris, the Church, Varennes, war, the overthrow of the monarchy, the ...

Power is easy to seek. The burden of using it wisely is far greater. What happens after a liberation movement becomes a government? How should political leaders exercise authority without abusing it? How can nations build institutions that outlast individual leaders? In The Burden of Power, John Monyjok Maluth explores one of the most important challenges facing every nation: transforming political power into responsible public service. Rather than treating leadership as the pursuit of authority, this book presents power as a constitutional trust that exists to protect citizens, strengthen ...

In this groundbreaking portrait of corporate seizure of political power, We the Corporations reveals how American businesses won equal rights and transformed the Constitution to serve the ends of capital. Corporations - like minorities and women - have had a civil rights movement of their own and now possess nearly all the same rights as ordinary people. Uncovering the deep historical roots of Citizens United, Adam Winkler shows how that controversial 2010 Supreme Court decision was the capstone of a 200-year battle....

Written in the intense political and intellectual tumult of the early years of the Weimar Republic, Political Theology develops the distinctive theory of sovereignty that made Carl Schmitt one of the most significant and controversial political theorists of the twentieth century. Focusing on the...

What happens when a president’s term ends—but his command over a movement, a party, and a potential successor does not? Donald Trump cannot lawfully be elected president a third time under the Constitution as it stands. Yet that legal answer does not settle the more dangerous question: Could he remain in charge? Trump After 2028 separates the impossible from the improbable, the possible, and the probable. It examines the Twenty-Second Amendment, presidential succession, emergency powers, election postponement, contested electoral counts, vice-presidential and Speaker theories, refusal ...

Words shape laws. They justify force. They decide who is protected and who is punished. In this installment of the Letter to America series, a U.S. Navy Veteran examines how powerful terms like domestic terrorist, threat, and extremist have expanded in meaning, and why that expansion matters to every citizen. This short, reflective letter explores: How legal definitions can be stretched through interpretation Why permitted actions like protesting or lawful carry can still result in punishment The growing gap between rights on paper and rights in practice What happens when language is used ...

How does the United States government actually work? Why did the Founders divide governmental power among different branches? What is federalism? What does the Constitution actually establish? How does the Bill of Rights protect individual liberty? And what prevents one branch of government from becoming too powerful? FOUNDATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT provides a clear and systematic introduction to the constitutional foundations of the American system of government. Written for readers who want to understand government without being overwhelmed by complicated political terminology...

Previously published as William Howard Taft: The Presidency He Never Wanted… And the Court He Was Born For by Gordon J. MacKenzie. William Howard Taft reached the White House as Theodore Roosevelt’s chosen successor. Twelve years later, he took the office he had long desired: Chief Justice of the United States. This revised second edition follows his journey from a Cincinnati household shaped by public service to the presidency and the Supreme Court. Across fourteen chapters, Gordon J. MacKenzie examines the lawyer, judge and administrator behind a political career divided between ...

The War Powers Resolution: A Constitutional Crisis? by Gerald R. Ford offers a concise yet powerful examination of the struggle between presidential authority and congressional control over military action. Drawing on historical examples, legal analysis, and his own experience as President, Ford explores the origins and consequences of the 1973 War Powers Resolution. He questions its practicality, constitutionality, and impact on U.S. foreign policy during times of crisis. Blending real-world case studies with insightful commentary, this book sheds light on one of the most enduring debates ...

What happens when the people no longer trust the institutions designed to protect them? In The Illusion of Checks and Balances, a U.S. Navy veteran examines the growing belief that America’s political safeguards are no longer functioning as intended. What was once presented as a balanced system of accountability now appears, to many Americans, to be a political structure increasingly controlled by party loyalty, institutional protection, and unchecked power. This powerful entry in the A Letter to America series explores: The weakening of public trust in government The collapse of ...

The Supreme Court was designed to be independent. But independence was never supposed to mean unchecked power. In The Problem with the Supreme Court, Julian Mercer examines how nine unelected justices came to hold extraordinary authority over American life, often with little accountability, limited transparency, and lifetime power that can shape the country for generations. From abortion and gun rights to voting access, campaign finance, religious liberty, corporate power, presidential authority, and federal regulation, the Court no longer simply interprets the law from a distance. It helps...

Though the Constitution was ratified in 1788, its impact on our lives is as recent as today's news. Informed by the latest scholarship and exploring the major themes that have shaped American constitutional history: federalism, the balance of powers, property, representation, equality, rights, and security, this book places constitutional history within the context of American political and social history. As our nation's circumstances have changed, so has our Constitution.

The United States Constitution declares that "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." Yet, over the past century, Congress has divested its legislative power to the courts, to the president, and to an ever-expanding administrative state. Why...

What if Americans remembered who actually governs the government? Written anonymously by a U.S. Navy veteran, We the People Are the Board of Directors reframes American government using a clear, non-partisan framework that strips away political noise and focuses on responsibility, accountability, and constitutional design. This book explains: Why citizens are not subjects or spectators—but overseers The proper role of the President as an executive, not a ruler Why oversight is not obstruction How party loyalty has distorted civic responsibility Where power truly comes from in a ...

America asks Black citizens to move on from history. But what happens when history never fully ends? In Letter to America: What Does “Make America Great Again” Mean for Black America?, a U.S. Navy veteran delivers a powerful historical and social examination of race, civil rights, political rollback, and historical memory in the United States. This book explores the long arc of Black American history — from slavery and Reconstruction to Jim Crow, lynching, segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, affirmative action, voting rights battles, DEI controversies, and the modern political ...

This audiobook examines how power operates once policy leaves speeches and enters the real world, where speed replaces caution, oversight weakens, and consequences often arrive long before accountability does. Rather than arguing ideology or partisanship, it tracks outcomes. It follows decisions through executive authority, agency enforcement, budgets, courts, markets, and foreign policy to reveal the widening gap between intention and impact.

A clear-eyed investigation into the cultural, institutional, and political transformations reshaping public life. Is today’s “woke” movement a spontaneous cultural shift — or part of a deeper intellectual winnowing that echoes older collectivist doctrines? Woke Communism traces the ideas, institutions, and incentives that have taken root in universities, media, corporations, and public policy. Drawing on history, case studies, and policy analysis, this book argues that new forms of cultural activism have become entangled with institutional power in ways that reshape civic norms, ...

Justice Robert Jackson once quipped about his role on the Supreme Court: "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final." But in the end even the Supreme Court is not the final word on the law. There will always be another case, and another session of the court to consider it -- and maybe to reconsider what the court has ruled before. As long as The United States endures, the Supreme Court will have its work to do. Keep learning about the US Supreme Court with this book.

William Pitt the Younger entered Downing Street at just twenty-four years old. He would spend most of his adult life carrying Britain through financial reconstruction, revolution, war and constitutional crisis. The son of the celebrated William Pitt the Elder, Pitt inherited a famous political name but developed a very different style of leadership. Where his father had relied on patriotic rhetoric and public drama, the younger Pitt built authority through financial discipline, parliamentary management and an extraordinary command of administrative detail. His rise came amid Britain's ...