July 23 and 24: ‘The Authority of the People’

July 23 and 24 featured different debates with an overlapping theme: the extent and, perhaps more important, the nature of popular sovereignty. The question on July 23 was whether the proposed Constitution should be submitted to state legislatures or popular conventions for approval. Some of that dispute revolved around whether the state legislatures, which would lose power if the Constitution was adopted, had a conflict of interest. But Virginia’s George Mason cut to the heart of the matter: Col. Mason considered a reference of the plan to the authority of the people as one of the most important and essential … Continue reading July 23 and 24: ‘The Authority of the People’

Crimes and High Crimes

The wind appears to have shifted somewhere between Air Force One and the Capitol building on Sunday, which was when Lindsey Graham, the malleable Senator from South Carolina, attempted to reclaim his status as the voice of reason. He is even harder to stomach in this reprisal of his original role as Senate moralist than he was in the first instantiation, probably because his dalliance–make that “torrid affair”–with Trumpism intervened. Graham wrote to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to plead that the article of impeachment be dismissed without being tried. His reasoning is admirable only for its audacity. Vice President … Continue reading Crimes and High Crimes