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The chief objectionable feature of antitrust law is that there’s no “there” there. The Sherman Antitrust Act gives essentially no guidance to either businessmen or courts concerning what it bans; rather, it amounts to Congress’s handing the judges a blank check, letting them essentially make up their own rules.

While Earl Warren was chief justice of the Supreme Court, no defendant won an antitrust case before that court. While Ronald Reagan was president, prosecution of antitrust charges essentially stopped. People who decry as unconstitutional President Obama’s decision not to enforce the DOMA clearly don’t know very much history.

On the other hand, the Sherman Act is unconstitutional on two grounds: 1) it’s void under the 5th Amendment for vagueness; and 2) it’s a violation of the Delegation Doctrine, which — although much ignored by the courts nowadays — is the principle that Congress cannot hand off its legislative authority to the other branches.

Antitrust is economic nonsense too, as Bork, Easterbrook, and others have shown.

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That was the ground of the perpetuation of religious establishment in the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: a good society required a moral people; average people wouldn’t be moral absent belief in a future state of rewards and punishments; belief in a future state of rewards and punishments came from religion; in order for all to be religious, they must be made to participate; Massachusetts residents weren’t going to be Catholic, Muslim, or Episcopalian; so the Congregationalist Establishment must continue.

Ben Franklin, not a religious man, famously said that he would not want to live in a non-Christian society because Christians made good neighbors.

Nowadays we tend to think of Christianity’s moral residue in our culture as somehow neutrally derived. Yet, monogamy, private property, and various other of our conventions are specific to our culture, where (like St. Constantine’s bans on infanticide and crucifixion and institution of the Sunday holiday) they have their origins in Christianity. I think we can see the post-Enlightenment history of the West as a long experiment to see whether decency can survive the decline of its source.

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He’s wrong about that: federalism was a new idea “in the last couple thousand years,” as were an independent judiciary, representative assemblies, and trial by jury. Mr. Goldberg ain’t no historian.

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Again I have to call your attention to the introduction to the paperback edition of JMMA. There, I answer your question, at least insofar as Madison is concerned, in detail.

If Madison was on one end of the spectrum among the Founders, you may also want to take a look at this:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/constitutional-calvinist/

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In JAMES MADISON AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA, I give considerable space to Madison’s campaign against Patrick Henry’s 1785 proposal for a general assessment. Among other things, Madison wrote “Memorial and Remonstrance: Against Religious Assessments,” in which he purported to show that close ties between government and religion have always harmed both government and religion. If by “to exclude religion” you mean “to prevent government from being religious,” I’m afraid you’re mistaken.

The paperback version of the book has a new introductory essay, “James Madison and the American Ideal of Religious Liberty,” taking the story up to the end of Madison’s life. He became more libertarian in this area all the way to the end.

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Everson is discussed at length in WHO KILLED THE CONSTITUTION? and THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION. In general, the Establishment Clause bans the Federal Government from setting up a national church, as well as from disestablishing state churches, while the Free Exercise Clause bans the FG from establishing national practice/observance requirements/bans.

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I’ve never seen the Southampton Rebellion called a sectional issue before, unless by “sectional” you mean “Old Virginia vs. western Virginia.”

The underlying tension between the sections always had southern concern over the future of slavery as one component. As early as the first Congress under the current constitution, a South Carolina representative threatened on the House floor that his state would secede if Congress threatened slavery (in that case, by taxing slave imports). As Dew shows in his magisterial APOSTLES OF DISUNION, Deep-South secession commissioners’ appeal to the other southern states came down chiefly to “Secede with us, because Lincoln is a threat to slavery.”

Notice that no other state joined the Deep South in seceding in response to this call. Still, it was the Deep South’s call.

It is incorrect to say that slavery wasn’t the underlying reason for secession of the Deep South states. Without Virginia, however, the CSA could not have put up a four-year fight in defense of southern independence. Of course, it was Lincoln who decided on war.

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Precisely.

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First, the best textbook on Russian history is Riasanovsky’s A HISTORY OF RUSSIA. I don’t know the current edition, which seems to have been revised by another historian, nor do I know the first five, but the previous two were both good.

The question whether to Westernize has been central to Russian intellectual history since Peter I (“the Great”). Peter was a Westernizer, and he wrenched his kingdom’s elite westward, chiefly via an attack on the Orthodox Church. See Anisimov and Alexander’s THE REFORMS OF PETER THE GREAT, for starters. If you really love the topic, Massie’s PETER THE GREAT is excellent as well.

The medieval period in Russian history is usually said to be everything between the Verangian settlements of the 9th century and the coronation of Peter I. There is a FABULOUS collection of the primary materials on medieval Russia: Zenkovsky’s MEDIEVAL RUSSIA’S EPICS, CHRONICLES, AND TALES. It has EVERYTHING: the Primary Chronicle, The Lay of Igor’s Campaign, The White Cowl, Vladimir Monomach (a really great Grand Prince), etc., and it’s CHEAP. If you read it attentively, you’ll understand both the history of Russia and the Orthodox Russians’ sense of their country’s place in God’s Providence. (“The first two Romes have fallen, ours is the third, and a fourth there shall never be.”) For a contemporary summation of that argument/worldview, I recommend a work by my favorite writer: Dostoyevsky’s DIARY OF A WRITER.

If your tastes are more contemporary than medieval, a good collection is the one I was assigned as an undergraduate in Sidney Monas’s course “Russian Intellectual History: From Peter to Lenin”: Raeff’s RUSSIAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY. This little book is particularly good regarding the fierce 19th-century dispute between Slavophiles and Westernizers (which is the subject 18-year-old Gutzman chose for his term paper). If you want to get the flavor of that debate from a literary source, read Turgenev’s little novel FATHERS AND SONS. If you’re like me, a little Dostoyevsky, a bit of Turgenev, Vladimir Monomach, etc., and you’ll never want to plod through Thoreau or Hemingway ever again. (Of course, Dostoyevsky’s THE POSSESSED is on a similar subject–and is unmatched. However, it’s a bit longer than Turgenev, and I’m trying to lure you into reading about Russia gently.)

The reason that Russia isn’t considered “Western” in “Western Civ.” courses is that “Western Civ.” courses are typically histories of the Roman church and its provinces. They just assume the validity of the Catholic Church’s account of Charlemagne’s coronation in AD 800, the Papal Claims, etc. To mention Russia (not to mention Byzantium) would, shall we say, complicate the narrative.

Russia was my Outside Field in graduate school, and Eastern Christianity was my Outside History Field. I served as a teaching assistant in a 20th-century Russian history course at UVA one semester. Besides that, I know all of the Orthodox services in Greek and in English, and I once published a journal article on a topic in Orthodox theology. If you desire more suggested readings, etc., just ask.

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The chief problem is that the movie has Adams doing everything, Jefferson as a bit of a twit, Washington as a marble man, etc. Unavoidable in a movie, I guess, that the central character will be puffed up.

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The best short Jefferson bio. is Bernstein’s THOMAS JEFFERSON. The best book on Jefferson’s political philosophy is David Mayer’s THE CONSTITUTIONAL THOUGHT OF THOMAS JEFFERSON; Mayer happens to be a libertarian law professor. I’m presently writing a book, THOMAS JEFFERSON, REVOLUTIONARY, that will cover … what the title indicates. There are a plethora of Jefferson books — basically one on any sub-topic that comes to mind, such as Jefferson as gardener, Jefferson as diplomat, Jefferson as constitutionalist, Jefferson and Madison, Jefferson and Marshall, Jefferson and Adams, Jefferson in retirement, Jefferson and UVA, Jefferson and France, Jefferson as architect, Jefferson and women, Jefferson and Indians, Jefferson and slavery, Jefferson and Hemings, Jefferson and the Declaration, etc. If she comes up with some sub-topic that she’d like to explore, I’ll be happy to recommend a title.

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I think our Byzantine prince needs a hobby.

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Before any attempt was made to enforce such a law, the federal district court for the district of Iowa would have issued an injunction banning such enforcement; then, any Iowa official who attempted to enforce it would be in contempt of federal court, and would suffer the consequences.

For more, google “Wallace school-house door” or “Ross Barnett Ol’ Miss.”

You’re welcome.

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I haven’t the slightest idea. When the FBI shows up to arrest someone, what do you think Iowa can do?

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The Avalon Project at Yale’s Web site has a host of primary documents, including a few that I’ve linked to on LibertyClassroom.com.

Besides that, Freehling edited a good collection on the Jacksonian era, Greene edited a good set on the Revolutionary era, Banning has a good book of primary documents from the Early Republic, I’ve repeatedly assigned my students Linden’s VOICES FROM THE GATHERING STORM on the Antebellum period, and there are ongoing or complete multi-volume editions of the papers of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Hamilton, Marshall, Jay, Lincoln, Douglas, Franklin, the First Congress, the Continental Congress, the Philadelphia Convention, the Ratification of the Constitution, etc. Law schools’ chief textbooks are collections of judicial opinions called “casebooks.” The world is your oyster!

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