Madison attempts to allay concerns about the expansion of federal powers under the Constitution. One of the more well-known founding fathers, James Madison was the primary author of the U.S.

Bruce Pardy is professor of law at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and executive director of Rights Probe, a law and liberty thinktank. He is an academic, lawyer, columnist, and ...

Jonathan Fortier talks with Bruce Pardy, Professor of Law at Queen’s University and Executive Director of Rights Probe. Bruce Pardy is professor of law at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, ...

From the Wisconsin territorial capitol, Abram D. Smith captivated his audience with tales of an electrified future of global republicanism. Virtually no one is aware that Abram D. Smith ever existed.

To commemorate the 175th anniversary of Frédéric Bastiat’s libertarian classic The Law, we delve into Bastiat’s intellectual legacy. There is perhaps no writer better at articulating the economic way ...

“To my mind the law is not our worst enemy. … Religious bigotry, marital jealousy, social prejudice, will operate in ostracism, contempt…and actual violence.” From Emil F. Ruedebusch, Mayville, Wis., ...

Adam Smith was a Scottish political philosopher and economist, considered one of the forefathers of classical economics and a pioneer of the study of political economy. Smith graduated from Balliol ...

Paine explores the distinction between society and government and the impact the latter has on the former in this selection from Common Sense. SOME writers have so confounded society with government, ...

“Servitude and mastery result from the struggle between the strong and the weak…and Blue Heaven has nothing whatsoever to do with it.” We know next to nothing about the man historian Etienne Balazs ...

“Misson designed his Settlement[,] Libertalia, [naming his people] Liberi…desiring [that it might drown the] Names of French, English, Dutch, Africans, &c.” In the second of our two- part ...

Spooner argues in this radical essay that the Constitution, which he frames as a legal contract, is not binding. The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or ...

John Locke lays out the foundational arguments of liberalism: people have rights preexisting government, and government exists to protect those rights. Nicknamed the "Father of Liberalism," Locke's ...