by Albert Jay Nock This classic essay on freedom was published in The American Mercury in 1927. I. The Majesty of the Law When I was seven years old, playing in front of our house on the outskirts of Brooklyn one morning, a policeman stopped and chatted with me for a few moments. He was a kindly man, of a Continue Reading →
by Christopher Ketcham “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another… a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” –The Declaration of Independence INCREASINGLY, I have no fealty to the U.S. Continue Reading →
A Constitution for the New Deal by H.L. Mencken The American Mercury, June 1937 THE PRINCIPLE cause of the uproar in Washington is a conflict between the swift-moving idealism of the New Deal and the unyielding hunkerousness of the Constitution of 1788. What is needed, obviously, is a wholly new Constitution, drawn up with enough boldness and imagination to cover Continue Reading →
by H.L. Mencken April 13, 1945 THE BALTIMORE Sun editorial on Roosevelt this morning begins: “Franklin D. Roosevelt was a great man.” There are heavy black dashes above and below it. The argument, in brief, is that all his skullduggeries and imbecilities were wiped out when “he took an inert and profoundly isolationist people and brought them to support a Continue Reading →
by Derek Sheriff LAST DECEMBER, when Tennessee Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mount Juliet, said she would introduce legislation which would declare null and void any federal law the state deems unconstitutional, some people were horrified. Rep. Lynn was specifically targeting the health-care reform legislation that was pending at that time. But the reaction that many people had to her language was Continue Reading →